HONESTY AND SELF-SELECTION INTO CHEAP TALK

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fehrler, Sebastian; Fischbacher, Urs; Schneider, Maik T.
• 署名单位: University of Konstanz; University of Bremen; University of Bath
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueaa028
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 2468-2496
• 关键词: public-service; tax contracts; COMMUNICATION; character; deception; promises; lies

摘要

In many situations, people can lie strategically, for their own benefit. Since individuals differ with respect to their willingness to lie, the credibility of statements will crucially depend on who self-selects into such cheap-talk situations. We study this process in a two-stage political competition setting. At the entry stage, potential candidates compete in a contest to become their party's candidate in an election. At the election stage, the nominated candidates campaign by making promises to voters. Confirming the model's key prediction, we find in our experiment that dishonest people over-proportionally self-select into the political race and thereby lower voters' welfare.