Believe me, I am ignorant, but not biased. Foerster, M. & Voss, A. European Economic Review, 2022.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
In our political-agency setting, voters are uninformed about two traits of an incumbent politician: ability and bias. Voters observe the implemented policy and learn the state immediately before the election. We show that when the bias of biased politicians is strong such that voters prefer neutral politicians even if they have low ability, high-ability and biased politicians may secure re-election by appearing ignorant. Furthermore, we introduce a news shock that may reveal the state earlier, when a policy change is still possible. Raising the likelihood of a shock may decrease voter welfare if bias is very strong. © 2022 The Author(s)
@article{foerster_believe_2022,
	title = {Believe me, {I} am ignorant, but not biased},
	volume = {149},
	issn = {0014-2921},
	doi = {10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104262},
	abstract = {In our political-agency setting, voters are uninformed about two traits of an incumbent politician: ability and bias. Voters observe the implemented policy and learn the state immediately before the election. We show that when the bias of biased politicians is strong such that voters prefer neutral politicians even if they have low ability, high-ability and biased politicians may secure re-election by appearing ignorant. Furthermore, we introduce a news shock that may reveal the state earlier, when a policy change is still possible. Raising the likelihood of a shock may decrease voter welfare if bias is very strong. © 2022 The Author(s)},
	language = {English},
	journal = {European Economic Review},
	author = {Foerster, M. and Voss, A.},
	year = {2022},
	keywords = {Asymmetric information, Elections, Ignorance, Political agency, Signaling},
}

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