(Almost) efficient information transmission in elections

Foucart, Renaud and Schmidt, Robert C. (2019) (Almost) efficient information transmission in elections. European Economic Review, 119. pp. 147-165. ISSN 0014-2921

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Abstract

We study a model in which two parties compete by announcing their policies, after receiving conditionally independent private signals about the true state of the world. Parties are both office- and policy-motivated. Our model can explain radically different policy positions, even when parties receive identical signals and have unbiased preferences. This holds in an asymmetric equilibrium in which both parties reveal their private information to the voters and the implemented policy is (almost) first-best for all possible realizations of parties’ signals. In this equilibrium, one party adopts extreme and the other one moderate policy positions.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
European Economic Review
Additional Information:
This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in European Economic Review. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in European Economic Review, 119, 2019 DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2019.07.005
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2000/2002
Subjects:
?? ELECTORAL COMPETITIONSIGNALINGINTUITIVE CRITERIONFINANCEECONOMICS AND ECONOMETRICS ??
ID Code:
136498
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
03 Sep 2019 08:25
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
16 Sep 2023 02:00