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The Revelation Of Information Through The Electoral Process: An Exploratory Analysis

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  • Joseph E. Harrington

Abstract

This paper investigates the incentives for candidates to make informative campaign speeches concerning their policy intentions. Electoral competition is modeled as a game of communication in which candidates’policy preferences are private information and they compete by making pre‐electoral policy announcements. An equilibrium is shown to exist in which candidates reveal their true policy intentions. We find that campaign messages are more likely to be informative, the less powerful is the elected office, the more attractive are candidates’opportunities outside of office, and the more uniform are candidates’prior beliefs as to the median voter's preferred policy.

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  • Joseph E. Harrington, 1992. "The Revelation Of Information Through The Electoral Process: An Exploratory Analysis," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 255-276, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:4:y:1992:i:3:p:255-276
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0343.1992.tb00087.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Warneryd, Karl, 1994. "Partisanship as Information," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 80(3-4), pages 371-380, September.
    2. Potters, Jan & Sloof, Randolph & van Winden, Frans, 1997. "Campaign expenditures, contributions and direct endorsements: The strategic use of information and money to influence voter behavior," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 1-31, February.
    3. Enriqueta Aragones & Thomas R. Palfrey & Andrew Postlewaite, 2005. "Reputation and Rhetoric in Elections," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-021, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    4. Zhang, Qiaoxi, 2020. "Vagueness in multidimensional proposals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 307-328.
    5. Heidhues, Paul & Lagerlof, Johan, 2003. "Hiding information in electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 48-74, January.
    6. Westermark, Andreas, 2001. "Campaigning and Ambiguity when Parties Cannot Make Credible Election Promises," Working Paper Series 568, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    7. Archishman Chakraborty & Parikshit Ghosh & Jaideep Roy, 2020. "Expert-Captured Democracies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(6), pages 1713-1751, June.
    8. Marina Agranov & Ran Eilat & Konstantin Sonin, 2020. "A Political Model of Trust," Working Papers 2020-50, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    9. César Martinelli & Akihiko Matsui, 2002. "Policy Reversals and Electoral Competition with Privately Informed Parties," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(1), pages 39-61, January.
    10. Mudambi, Ram & Navarra, Pietro & Sobbrio, Giuseppe, 1999. "Changing the rules: political competition under plurality and proportionality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 547-567, September.
    11. Todd Kendall, 2010. "Strategic political commentary," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 151-175, January.
    12. Casamatta Georges & Sand-Zantman Wilfried, 2006. "Citizen Candidacy With Asymmetric Information," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-41, February.
    13. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 2002. "Costly signaling and cheap talk in models of political influence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 263-280, June.
    14. Enriqueta Aragonés & Andrew Postlewaite, 1999. "Ambiguity in election games," Economics Working Papers 364, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    15. Kroszner, Randall S. & Stratmann, Thomas, 1999. "Does Political Ambiguity Pay? Corporate Campaign contributions and the Rewards to Legislator Reputation," Working Papers 155, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    16. Kroszner, Randall S & Stratmann, Thomas, 2005. "Corporate Campaign Contributions, Repeat Giving, and the Rewards to Legislator Reputation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 41-71, April.
    17. Miura, Shintaro, 2019. "Manipulated news model: Electoral competition and mass media," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 306-338.
    18. Westermark, Andreas, 2004. "Extremism, campaigning and ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 421-452, May.
    19. Cesar Martinelli & Akihiko Matsui, 1999. "Policy Reversals: Electoral Competition with Privately Informed Parties," Working Papers 9905, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM, revised Jan 2000.
    20. Bruno Salcedo, 2019. "Persuading part of an audience," Papers 1903.00129, arXiv.org.
    21. Randall S. Kroszner & Thomas Stratmann, 1999. "Does Political Ambiguity Pay? Corporate Campaign contributions and the Rewards to Legislator Reputation," University of Chicago - George G. Stigler Center for Study of Economy and State 155, Chicago - Center for Study of Economy and State.
    22. Chilton, John, 1998. "Strategic Poll Responses When Elections Create Mandates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 94(1-2), pages 21-47, January.
    23. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 2000. "Cheap Talk and Burned Money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-16, March.
    24. Ascensión Andina, 2004. "Asymmetric Information And Electoral Campaigns: The Monitoring Role Of Media," Working Papers. Serie AD 2004-32, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    25. Hisashi Sawaki, 2017. "Ideology signaling in electoral politics," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(1), pages 48-68, January.

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