(Dis)honesty and the value of transparency for campaign promises

Matthias Lang and Simeon Schudy

European Economic Review, 2023, vol. 159, issue C

Abstract: Promise competition is prevalent in many economic environments, but promise keeping is often difficult to observe. We study the value of transparency for promise competition and ask whether promises still offer an opportunity to honor future obligations when outcomes do not allow for observing promise keeping. Focusing on campaign promises, we show theoretically how preferences for truth-telling shape promise competition when promise keeping can(not) be observed and identify the causal effects of transparency in an incentivized experiment. Transparency leads to less promise breaking but also to less generous promises. Rent appropriations are higher in opaque institutions though only weakly so when not fully opaque. Instrumental reputational concerns and preferences for truth-telling explain these results.

Keywords: Campaign promises; Promise breaking; Voting; Lying costs; Preferences for truth-telling; Political economy; Theory; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D72 D73 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: (Dis)honesty and the Value of Transparency for Campaign Promises (2023)
Working Paper: (Dis)honesty and the Value of Transparency for Campaign Promises (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:159:y:2023:i:c:s0014292123001885

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104560

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