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Electoral competition with fake news

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  • Grossman, Gene M.
  • Helpman, Elhanan

Abstract

Misinformation pervades political competition. We introduce opportunities for political candidates and their media supporters to spread fake news about the policy environment and perhaps about parties’ positions into a familiar model of electoral competition. In the baseline model with full information, the parties’ positions converge to those that maximize aggregate welfare. When parties can broadcast fake news to audiences that disproportionately include their partisans, policy divergence and suboptimal outcomes can result. We study a sequence of models that impose progressively tighter constraints on false reporting and characterize situations that lead to divergence and a polarized electorate.

Suggested Citation

  • Grossman, Gene M. & Helpman, Elhanan, 2023. "Electoral competition with fake news," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:77:y:2023:i:c:s0176268022001185
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2022.102315
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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.
    2. Yohei Yamaguchi & Ken Yahagi, 2024. "Law enforcement and political misinformation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 36(1), pages 3-36, January.
    3. Rozo, Sandra V. & Vargas, Juan F., 2021. "Brothers or invaders? How crisis-driven migrants shape voting behavior," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    4. Dana Sisak & Philipp Denter, 2024. "Information Sharing with Social Image Concerns and the Spread of Fake News," Papers 2410.19557, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Policy formation; Probabilistic voting; Misinformation; Polarization; Fake news;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

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