Electoral Endorsements and Campaign Contributions

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Panova

Abstract This paper models information transmission in an electoral campaign. The voters have conflicting policy interests, but they are congruent in their desire to elect a competent politician. They hold private information about the candidates for office, and they use endorsements and campaign contributions to signal their information, so as to advertise their most preferred candidates. Endorsements are cheap talk, but campaign contributions are costly, hence, contributions are stronger signals than endorsements. Therefore, contributions help to transmit information when voter interests are relatively divergent (however, not so much that campaigning is useless).

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gülen Karakoç

Abstract A decision maker solicits information from two partially informed experts and then makes a choice under uncertainty. The experts can be either moderately or extremely biased relative to the decision maker, which is their private information. I investigate the incentives of the experts to share their private information with the decision maker and analyze the resulting effects on information transmission. I show that it may be optimal to consult a single expert rather than two experts if the decision maker is sufficiently concerned about taking advice from extremely biased experts. In contrast to what may be expected, this result suggests that getting a second opinion may not always be helpful for decision making.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Newton

AbstractThis paper analyzes simple models of editorial control. Starting from the framework developed by Krishna and Morgan (2001a), we analyze two-sender models of cheap talk where one or more of the senders has the power to veto messages before they reach the receiver. A characterization of the most informative equilibria of such models is given. It is shown that editorial control never aids communication and that for small biases in the senders’ preferences relative to those of the receiver, necessary and sufficient conditions for information transmission to be adversely affected are (i) that the senders have opposed preferences relative to the receiver and (ii) that both senders have powers of editorial control. It is shown that the addition of further senders beyond two weakly decreases information transmission when senders exercising editorial control are anonymous, and weakly increases information transmission when senders exercising editorial control are observed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Aline Brandão Mariath ◽  
Larissa Galastri Baraldi ◽  
Ana Paula Bortoletto Martins

Abstract Objective: To assess corporate electoral campaign contributions from industries related to sugary drinks production and the characteristics of the elected officials financed by the sector. Design: Cross-sectional analysis of electoral campaign contributions from corporations related to sugary drinks production (sugary drink industries and sugary drink input industries) to candidates to the Chamber of Deputies, Brazil. Setting: Elections to the 55th Congress (2015-2019), held in October 2014. Participants: Candidates to the Chamber of Deputies, Brazil. Results: Forty-nine companies or corporate groups that produce sugary drinks and 52 corporations that produce inputs for sugary drinks manufacturing contributed to electoral campaigns of candidates in the 2014 Election. Contributions from this industry sector represented 7.3% of all corporate contributions and helped finance 11.7% of the candidates and 46.2% of the elected officials. The transnationals Ambev and Coca-Cola were the first and second biggest donors, respectively. Revenues mediated by political parties, from sugary drink industries, and from corporate members of some industry associations (Abir, Unica and CitrusBR) were more prevalent. Among elected officials, a significant association was found between being financed by the sector and representing the Southeast region, having higher education level and referring themselves as being professional politicians. In the multivariate model, financed candidates were 27% more likely to be elected. Conclusions: Corporations related to sugary drinks production have contributed to the electoral campaigns of almost half of the Federal Deputies in Brazil in 2014. This possibly facilitates access to decision-makers and could help buy influence on legislative proposals, including health-related food policies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Tony Ke ◽  
Yuting Zhu

We consider a large decentralized freelance platform where buyers with private information about their quality preferences are matched with freelancers that differ in quality. When posting their job requests, buyers can report their quality preferences via cheap talk, which influences freelancers’ application and pricing strategies. By exaggerating one’s quality preference, a buyer attracts not only more applications from freelancers, but also those with higher quality, at the cost of a higher expected price. We find that it is always an equilibrium for the buyers to report their quality preferences truthfully when they cannot renegotiate with freelancers on their asking prices after getting matched. On the other hand, when postmatch renegotiation is allowed and buyers have relatively high bargaining power, low-type buyers may strategically exaggerate their quality preferences, and subsequently after getting matched, costly signal their true type and bargain for lower prices. From a platform design perspective, our analysis implies that the option of renegotiation, designed to facilitate postmatch information transmission, may backfire by giving rise to buyers’ prematch opportunistic behaviors of information distortion. This paper was accepted by Joshua Gans, business strategy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-369
Author(s):  
Caleb A. Cox ◽  
Brock Stoddard

We experimentally examine private information and communication in a public goods environment with uncertain returns. We consider a common-value public goods game in which the return to contribution is either high or low. Before contributing, three players observe private signals correlated with the return and send cheap talk messages to one another. There are social gains from truthfulness, but a private incentive to exaggerate. We compare treatments with and without cheap talk, finding that communication is largely truthful and increases efficiency. In further treatments, we increase the incentive to exaggerate and find reduced truthfulness and smaller gains from communication. (JEL C72, D82, D83, H41)


2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (02) ◽  
pp. 145-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRÉDÉRIC KOESSLER ◽  
FRANÇOISE FORGES

We survey selected results on strategic information transmission. We distinguish between "cheap talk" and "persuasion". In the latter model, the informed player's message set depends on his type. As a benchmark, we first assume that the informed player sends a single message to the decision maker. We state characterization results for the sets of equilibrium payoffs, with and without verifiable types. We then show that multistage, bilateral communication enables the players to achieve new equilibrium outcomes, even if types are verifiable. We also propose complete characterizations of the equilibrium payoffs that are achievable with a bounded number of communication rounds.


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