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Information revelation and anti-pandering in elections
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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 In: Invited Speaker : Political Economy Workshop, New York University, 21 Oct 2011 (Unpublished)
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Official URL: http://politics.as.nyu.edu/object/Squintani_102111...
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) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory J Political Science > JC Political theory |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||
Official Date: | 21 October 2011 | ||||
Dates: |
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Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||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 |
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