Reputation and Rhetoric in Elections

Enriqueta Aragonès (), Thomas Palfrey and Andrew Postlewaite
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Enriqueta Aragonès: Institut d’Anà lisi Econòmica
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Enriqueta Aragones

PIER Working Paper Archive from Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: We analyze conditions under which campaign rhetoric may affect the beliefs of the voters over what policy will be implemented by the winning candidate of an election. We develop a model of repeated elections with complete information in which candidates are purely ideological. We analyze an equilibrium in which voters’ strategies involve a credible threat to punish candidates who renege of their campaign promises, and all campaign promises are believed by voters, and honored by candidates. We characterize the maximal credible campaign promises and obtain that the degree to which promises are credible in equilibrium is an increasing function of the value of a candidate’s reputation.

Keywords: Repeated Elections; Commitment; Reputation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2005-04-11, Revised 2005-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Reputation and Rhetoric in Elections (2005)
Working Paper: Reputation and Rhetoric in Elections (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pen:papers:05-027

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