Kartiky, Navin, Squintani, Francesco and Tinnx, Katrin (2011) Information revelation and anti-pandering in elections. In: Invited Speaker : Political Economy Workshop, New York University, 21 Oct 2011 (Unpublished)

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Abstract

We study a Downsian model of elections in which two candidates who are primarily office-motivated have policy-relevant private information. A conventional intuition is that electoral competition bene�ts voters by inducing candidates to choose (constrained-)efficient platforms. A countering perspective is that inefficiencies obtain because candidates distort their platforms toward the voters' prior beliefs, i.e. they pander. We �nd that both intuitions are incorrect for familiar classes of information structures. In our model, office-motivated candidates have an incentive to exaggerate their private information, i.e. to anti-pander. While platforms can still reveal information, equilibrium voter welfare is limited. Our main result is that voter welfare in the Downsian game cannot be any higher than under \dictatorship" by a single non-ideological politician; furthermore, if both candidates have a positive probability of winning in the Downsian game, voter welfare is strictly lower. Normatively, we also show that pandering would improve efficiency; while this is incompatible with office-motivated candidates, it would be an equilibrium were candidates benevolent.

Item Type:	Conference Item (Paper)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory J Political Science > JC Political theory
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Date:	21 October 2011
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Version or Related Resource:	Kartiky, Navin, et al. (2011). Information revelation and anti-pandering in elections. Invited Speaker : Department of Economics. Boston University, Boston, 18 Oct 2011. Kartiky, Navin, et al. (2012). Information revelation and anti-pandering in elections. Invited Speaker : Monterey Theory Workshops. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 13 Apr 2012. Kartiky, Navin, et al. (2012). Information revelation and anti-pandering in elections. Invited Speaker : Political Economy Seminar Series. Northwestern University, 16 Apr 2012. Kartiky, Navin, et al. (2012). Information revelation and anti-pandering in elections. Invited Speaker : Washington University in St. Louis. St. Louis, 19 Apr 2012.
Conference Paper Type:	Paper
Title of Event:	Invited Speaker : Political Economy Workshop
Type of Event:	Other
Location of Event:	New York University
Date(s) of Event:	21 Oct 2011
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/45080

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