Information Manipulation, Coordination, and Regime Change

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Edmond, Chris
• 署名单位: University of Melbourne
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdt020
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 1422-1458
• 关键词: multiplicity; equilibrium; crises

摘要

This article presents a model of information manipulation and political regime change. There is a regime that can be overthrown but only if enough citizens participate in an uprising. Citizens are imperfectly informed about the regime's ability to resist an uprising and the regime can engage in propaganda that, taken at face-value, makes the regime seem stronger than it truly is. This coordination game with endogenous information manipulation has a unique equilibrium and the article gives a complete analytic characterization of the equilibrium's comparative statics. Holding fixed the number of signals available to citizens, if the per-unit signal precision is sufficiently high then the regime is harder to overthrow. In contrast, if the number of signals increases, so that both total signal precision and the regime's costs of manipulation rise together, then the regime is easier to overthrow unless there are strong economies of scale in information control.