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DECEPTION AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: THEORY AND LABORATORY EVIDENCE
Author(s) -
Houser Daniel,
Ludwig Sandra,
Stratmann Thomas
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
economic inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1465-7295
pISSN - 0095-2583
DOI - 10.1111/ecin.12236
Subject(s) - deception , political advertising , voting , advertising , politics , quality (philosophy) , economics , test (biology) , voting behavior , microeconomics , econometrics , political science , psychology , social psychology , business , law , paleontology , philosophy , epistemology , biology
We model two‐candidate elections in which (1) voters are uncertain about candidates' attributes; and (2) candidates can inform voters of their attributes by sending advertisements. We compare between political campaigns with truthful advertising and campaigns in which there is a small chance of deceptive advertising. Our model predicts that voters should vote in‐line with an advertisement's information. We test our model's predictions using laboratory elections. We find, in the presence of even a small probability that an advertisement is deceptive, voters become substantially more likely to elect a “low‐quality” candidate. We discuss implications of this for existing models of voting decisions. ( JEL C92, D72, D82)