IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v19y2007i4p489-501.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Messenger Game

Author

Listed:
  • Tao Li

    (School of Economics, University of Finance and Economics, 777 Guoding Road, Shanghai, 200433, China, litaoonline@gmail.com)

Abstract

We challenge the generally accepted ally principle in legislative politics that a preference outlier committee will distort information to the legislative floor. If interest groups (or other third parties) are rational, they will withhold the most precise information for fear of committee misrepresentation. As a result, even preference outlier committees could be disciplined by their own ignorance not to distort the lobbyist message, as they are uncertain whether lying pays for the current situation or not. Our result calls into question the theoretical foundation of the influential preference outlier debate in legislative politics.

Suggested Citation

  • Tao Li, 2007. "The Messenger Game," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 19(4), pages 489-501, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:19:y:2007:i:4:p:489-501
    DOI: 10.1177/09516298070190040501
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09516298070190040501
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09516298070190040501?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul E. Fischer & Phillip C. Stocken, 2001. "Imperfect Information and Credible Communication," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 119-134, June.
    2. Shepsle, Kenneth A. & Weingast, Barry R., 1987. "The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 85-104, March.
    3. Gilligan, Thomas W & Krehbiel, Keith, 1987. "Collective Decisionmaking and Standing Committees: An Informational Rationale for Restrictive Amendment Procedures," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 287-335, Fall.
    4. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jaehoon Kim & Lawrence S. Rothenberg, 2008. "Foundations of Legislative Organization and Committee Influence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 339-374, July.
    2. Fang-Yi Chiou, 2011. "The role of procedural commitment in informational theories of legislative organization," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(4), pages 532-558, October.
    3. Adam Ramey, 2015. "Bringing the minority back to the party: An informational theory of majority and minority parties in Congress," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(1), pages 132-150, January.
    4. Daniel Habermacher, 2022. "Authority and Specialization under Informational Interdependence," Working Papers 142, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    5. Fang-Yi Chiou & Silje SL Hermansen & Bjørn Høyland, 2020. "Delegation of committee reports in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(2), pages 233-254, June.
    6. Bennedsen, Morten & Feldmann, Sven E., 2006. "Informational lobbying and political contributions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 631-656, May.
    7. Rantakari, Heikki, 2014. "A simple model of project selection with strategic communication and uncertain motives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 14-42.
    8. Ismail Saglam & Mehmet Y. Gurdal & Ayca Ozdogan, 2011. "Truth-telling and Trust in Sender-receiver Games with Intervention," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1123, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    9. Daniel Habermacher, 2022. "Information Aggregation in Multidimensional Cheap Talk," Working Papers 169, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    10. Johanna Hertel & John Smith, 2013. "Not so cheap talk: costly and discrete communication," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(2), pages 267-291, August.
    11. Boris Knapp, 2021. "Fake Reviews and Naive Consumers," Vienna Economics Papers 2102, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    12. Battaglini, Marco & Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung & Wang, Joseph Tao-Yi, 2019. "The Informational Theory of Legislative Committees: An Experimental Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(1), pages 55-76, February.
    13. Vijay Krishna & John Morgan, 2008. "Contracting for information under imperfect commitment," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 905-925, December.
    14. Ivanov, Maxim, 2010. "Informational control and organizational design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 721-751, March.
    15. Takashi Shimizu, 2017. "Cheap talk with an exit option: a model of exit and voice," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 46(4), pages 1071-1088, November.
    16. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 2000. "Cheap Talk and Burned Money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-16, March.
    17. Dobler, Michael, 2008. "Incentives for risk reporting -- A discretionary disclosure and cheap talk approach," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 184-206.
    18. Hongbin Cai, 2009. "Costly participation and heterogeneous preferences in informational committees," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(1), pages 173-189, March.
    19. Li Hao & Wing Suen, 2009. "Viewpoint: Decision-making in committees," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 359-392, May.
    20. Krahmer, Daniel, 2006. "Message-contingent delegation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 490-506, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:19:y:2007:i:4:p:489-501. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.