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False claims in politics: Evidence from the US

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  • Bucciol, Alessandro

Abstract

In this paper, we use data on 2459 public claims made by 444 politicians from the leading US fact-checking site (PolitiFact) to provide an empirical analysis of false claims in politics, shedding light on their characteristics within an advanced democracy. The frequency of falsehoods differs according to party affiliation and topic, with false claims more likely on such topics as elections, health, labor, taxes and values. For Republican politicians, falsehood pays off in the short run, as it is associated with greater political support.

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  • Bucciol, Alessandro, 2018. "False claims in politics: Evidence from the US," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 196-210.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reecon:v:72:y:2018:i:2:p:196-210
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rie.2018.04.002
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    Cited by:

    1. Samuel S. Santos & Marcelo C. Griebeler, 2022. "Can fact-checkers discipline the government?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(3), pages 1498-1509.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    False claims; Democracy; Political competition; Persuasion; Beliefs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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