(Almost) efficient information transmission in elections

Foucart, Renaud; Schmidt, Robert C.

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.

Citation

Foucart, R., & Schmidt, R. C. (2019). (Almost) efficient information transmission in elections. European Economic Review, 119, 147-165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2019.07.005

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 24, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Aug 27, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019-10
• Deposit Date: Jul 29, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 28, 2021
• Journal: European Economic Review
• Print ISSN: 0014-2921
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 119
• Pages: 147-165
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2019.07.005
• Keywords: electoral competition; signaling; intuitive criterion JEL classification: D72; D83; Q54
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2350416
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292119301242
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: (Almost) efficient information transmission in elections; Journal Title: European Economic Review; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2019.07.005; Content Type: article; Copyright: Crown Copyright © 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.