Revealing information in electoral competition

Mike Felgenhauer

Public Choice, 2012, vol. 153, issue 1, 55-68

Abstract: Electoral competition between two expert candidates may lead to inefficient platform choices. The present paper studies electoral competition between two experts and a third uninformed candidate. The latter behaves populistically. This seemingly useless candidate restores efficiency. The paper then endogenizes information acquisition. If the information acquisition costs are low, then equilibria with (i) three expert candidates or (ii) two experts and one uninformed candidate may arise. There are costs such that the latter equilibrium is the only pure strategy equilibrium in which information is transmitted. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Keywords: Elections; Information transmission; Information acquisition; D72; D78; D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-011-9773-3

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