Directional cheap talk in electoral campaigns

  • Keith E. Schnakenberg

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    14 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Can campaign communications credibly transmit information about candidates' policy intentions? To answer this question, I develop and analyze a game-Theoretic model of campaign communication in a two-candidate majority rule election with multidimensional policies. Candidate and voter preferences are private information, and campaigns consist of both candidates sending cheap talk messages in order to communicate information about their preferences. The game possesses equilibria involving informative campaign messages that reveal information about the directions of the candidates' ideal points from the center of the policy space but leave the voters uncertain about which candidate is more extreme.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)527-541
    Number of pages15
    JournalJournal of Politics
    Volume78
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Apr 2016

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