The war of information

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

50 Scopus citations

Abstract

We analyse political contests (campaigns) between two parties with opposing interests. Parties provide costly information to voters who choose a policy. The information flow is continuous and stops when both parties quit. Parties' actions are strategic substitutes: increasing one party's cost makes that party provide more and its opponent provide less information. For voters, parties' actions are complements and hence raising the advantaged party's cost may be beneficial. Asymmetric information adds a signalling component resulting in a belief threshold at which the informed party's decision to continue campaigning offsets other unfavourable information.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)707-734
Number of pages28
JournalReview of Economic Studies
Volume79
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2012

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Economics and Econometrics

Keywords

  • Campaign spending
  • Political competition

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