Electoral Competition with Fake News

Elhanan Helpman and Gene Grossman

No 14210, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Misinformation pervades political competition. We introduce opportunities for political can- didates and their media supporters to spread fake news about the policy environment and perhaps about partiesÂ’positions into a familiar model of electoral competition. In the baseline model with full information, the partiesÂ’positions converge to those that maximize aggregate welfare. When parties can broadcast fake news to audiences that disproportionately include their partisans, policy divergence and suboptimal outcomes can result. We study a sequence of models that impose progressively tighter constraints on false reporting and characterize situa- tions that lead to divergence and a polarized electorate.

Keywords: Electoral competition; Fake news; Policy positions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-gth, nep-mic, nep-ore and nep-pol
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Electoral competition with fake news (2023)
Working Paper: Electoral Competition with Fake News (2020)
Working Paper: Electoral Competition with Fake News (2020)
Working Paper: Electoral Competition with Fake News (2019)
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