Confirmation bias and signaling in Downsian elections

Antony Millner (), Hélène Ollivier and Leo Simon ()
Additional contact information
Antony Millner: LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science
Leo Simon: LBNL - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [Berkeley]

PSE Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: How do voters' behavioural biases affect political outcomes? We study this question in a model of Downsian electoral competition in which office-motivated candidates have private information about the benefits of policies, and voters may infer candidates' information from their electoral platforms. If voters are Bayesian, candidates have strategic incentives to `anti-pander' { they choose platforms that are more extreme than is justified by their private beliefs. However, anti-pandering incentives are ameliorated if voters'inferences are subject to confirmation bias. Voter confirmation bias can thus counteract distortions due to the strategic interaction between candidates, potentially leading to welfare improvements. Indeed, we show that all observers, whether biased or Bayesian, would like the representative voter in our model to exhibit more confirmation bias than they do themselves.

Keywords: pandering; electoral competition; signaling; JEL Codes: D72; D91 Keywords: Confirmation bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic and nep-pol
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01631494v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01631494v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Confirmation bias and signaling in Downsian elections (2020)
Working Paper: Confirmation bias and signaling in Downsian elections (2020)
Working Paper: Confirmation bias and signaling in Downsian elections (2020)
Working Paper: Confirmation bias and signaling in Downsian elections (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01631494

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PSE Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().