IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/swe/wpaper/2012-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Sound of Silence: Anti-Defamation Law and Political Corruption

Author

Listed:
  • Gabriele Gratton

    (School of Economics, The University of New South Wales)

Abstract

I study a model of political agency where a media firm plays a monitoring role between the electorate and the politician. The analysis focuses on the design of a legal framework for the press such that corruption is minimized. I find that an antidefamation law punishing media that publish false scandals reduces corruption only if (i) the punishment for the defamer is large enough to deter the publication of some true scandals and (ii) the electorate can punish the politician when no scandal is published.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriele Gratton, 2012. "The Sound of Silence: Anti-Defamation Law and Political Corruption," Discussion Papers 2012-21, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    • Handle: RePEc:swe:wpaper:2012-21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/RePEc/papers/2012-21.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Nenova, Tatiana & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "Who Owns the Media?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(2), pages 341-381, October.
    2. Suphachol Suphachalasai, 2005. "Bureaucratic Corruption and Mass Media," Public Economics 0502014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kofman, Fred & Lawarree, Jacques, 1993. "Collusion in Hierarchical Agency," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 629-656, May.
    4. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2008. "Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil's Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 703-745.
    5. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Media Bias and Reputation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 280-316, April.
    6. Antle, R, 1984. "Auditor Independence," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 1-20.
    7. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    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. Gratton, Gabriele, 2015. "The sound of silence: Political accountability and libel law," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 266-279.
    2. Gabriele Gratton, 2013. "The Sound of Silence: Anti-Defamation Law and Political Corruption," Discussion Papers 2012-21A, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    3. Francesco Drago & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Sobbrio, 2014. "Meet the Press: How Voters and Politicians Respond to Newspaper Entry and Exit," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 159-188, July.
    4. Francesco Sobbrio, 2012. "A Citizen-Editors Model of News Media," RSCAS Working Papers 2012/61, European University Institute.
    5. Serena Marianna Drufuca, 2014. "Information, Media and Elections: Incentives for Media Capture," Working Papers (2013-) 1402, University of Bergamo, Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods.
    6. Gehlbach, Scott & Sonin, Konstantin, 2014. "Government control of the media," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 163-171.
    7. Timothy Besley & Andrea Prat, 2006. "Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 720-736, June.
    8. Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova & Konstantin Sonin, 2018. "Social Media and Corruption," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 150-174, January.
    9. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Mark Schelker, 2016. "Unabhängige Finanzkontrolle in der Demokratie," CREMA Working Paper Series 2016-06, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    11. Francesco Sobbrio, 2014. "The political economy of news media: theory, evidence and open issues," Chapters, in: Francesco Forte & Ram Mudambi & Pietro Maria Navarra (ed.), A Handbook of Alternative Theories of Public Economics, chapter 13, pages 278-320, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Chan, Jimmy & Suen, Wing, 2009. "Media as watchdogs: The role of news media in electoral competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 799-814, October.
    13. repec:lic:licosd:27210 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Julia Rothbauer & Gernot Sieg, 2013. "Public Service Broadcasting of Sport, Shows, and News to Mitigate Rational Ignorance," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 21-40, March.
    15. Angelo Baglioni & Luca Colombo, 2009. "Managers’ Compensation And Misreporting: A Costly State Verification Approach," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(2), pages 278-289, April.
    16. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2008. "Competition and Truth in the Market for News," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 133-154, Spring.
    17. Arrunada, Benito & Paz-Ares, Candido, 1997. "Mandatory rotation of company auditors: A critical examination," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 31-61, March.
    18. Guglielmo Barone & Francesco D'Acunto & Gaia Narciso, 2015. "Telecracy: Testing for Channels of Persuasion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 30-60, May.
    19. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2005. "Commercial Television and Voter Information," CEPR Discussion Papers 4989, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Larcinese, Valentino & Sircar, Indraneel, 2017. "Crime and punishment the British way: Accountability channels following the MPs’ expenses scandal," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 75-99.
    21. Yi Xiang & Miklos Sarvary, 2007. "News Consumption and Media Bias," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(5), pages 611-628, 09-10.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    media and democracy; corruption; defamation; chilling effect.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:swe:wpaper:2012-21. 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: Hongyi Li (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/senswau.html .

    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.