Pressure Groups And Political Advertising: How Uninformed Voters Can Use Strategic Rules Of Thumb

Donald Wittman

Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz

Abstract: This paper shows how uninformed but rational voters can respond intelligently to political advertising. The paper models a situation where a candidate must rely on a pressure group for financing political advertising. The pressure group uses its power over the purse to influence the position chosen by the candidate. Nevertheless, when uninformed voters use a strategic rule of thumb, pressure-group contributions always move the outcome of the election closer to the median voter. By using such a rule of thumb, when there is advertising, uninformed voters can have the same influence on the election as informed voters.

Keywords: Candidates; pressure groups; elections; uninformed voters (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-02-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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