Character Endorsements and Electoral Competition

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chakraborty, Archishman; Ghosh, Parikshit
• 署名单位: Yeshiva University; University of Delhi; Delhi School of Economics
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20140241
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 277-310
• 关键词: media bias; political competition; bad-news; MODEL; INFORMATION; candidate

摘要

When an elite-controlled media strategically endorses candidates in order to promote its own ideological agenda, office-seeking parties may completely pander to the media, under moderate ideological conflict between voters and the elite. Larger ideological conflict leads to polarization-parties either become media darlings or run populist campaigns. The welfare effects are: (i) delegation by the media owner to a more moderate editor is Pareto improving, (ii) the median voter is never better off delegating voting rights to the informed elite, (iii) a majority of voters may be better off if the informed media did not exist.