Among the many exciting research programs at GMU Economics is “experimental public choice” — a research project being taken to new levels of sophistication by my colleagues Dan Houser (who’s also now my boss) and Thomas Stratmann. Here, for example, is the abstract of one of their recent papers:
We examine the effect of deceptive advertising on voting decisions in elections. We model two-candidate elections in which 1) voters are uncertain about candidates’ attributes; and 2) candidates can inform voters of their attributes by sending advertisements. We compare political campaigns with truthful advertising to campaigns in which there is a small chance of deceptive advertising. Our theoretical model predicts that informed voters should act on the information contained in the advertisement. Thus, even in deceptive campaigns, informed voters should either vote for the candidate from whom they received an advertisement or abstain from voting; they should never vote for the opposing candidate. We test our model in laboratory elections, and, as predicted, find higher participation among informed voters in elections that allow only for truthful advertisement than in elections that permit deceptive advertising. Contrary to our theoretical predictions, we find substantial differences in voting behavior between truthful and deceptive campaigns. When faced with a small probability of deception, informed voters in deceptive campaigns vote for the candidate who did not send an advertisement, thereby making sub-optimal voting choices. Even when there is only a small chance that an advertisement is deceptive, voters are more likely to elect the candidate who generates less welfare.
Share
{ 8 comments }
Where do I send my donation?
You were JUST RANTING on the other post about how experimental economics is pointless!!!!
Now you’re offering them your money???
Don, why is professor Houser now your boss. Have you stepped down from the position of Econ. Dept. Chair, or is his position above that?
As of August, I’m no longer Chairman of GMU Econ. After two full four-year terms, it was time — for the Department and for me — for new blood and brains in that post. And Dan Houser will, I’m sure, be a great improvement over me.
No more herding of cats for you then? From what I can tell, you did a fine job, congrats!
This is great Don – very interesting stuff.
A la Robin Hanson, maybe voting is an important social signal–in this case being able to truthfully state that you “did your civic duty”. So it’s important that subjects vote for _someone_. I wonder if voting for the non-advertiser is the better choice under that formulation.
From the abstract — “truthful”, “small chance of”, “deceptive”, “informed”, “information”, “advertisement”. Can you make any meaning of these terms in a political context?
Truthful — who has ever gotten this one right? The closest I’ve ever seen is Rush Limbaugh — and he’s far from perfect, just the best. He’s good because every word he utters is monitored, and there’s a lot of words. Roughly speaking, it’s like a fifteen hour a week press conference with an army of media opponents waiting for him to make a mistake. What they come up with is … nothing. So the guy is being truthful. May not agree with him, but if you want to hear the truth … who else is consolidating it? Try rating an agency like factcheck.org for being truthful and see what you get.
Small chance of — What an odd way to qualify deception. Even in an early-game, mid-game, end-game, conclusion — with full knowledge of what was intended and said, at the conclusion we still don’t know the action. How can you calculate the frequency of deception (without knowing the frequency of being truthful)?
Deceptive — X chance of not being truthful? Or, simply not being truthful in a creative way? The term “small chance of” tells me it’s a relative term — probably subjective. It seems to be a replacement for “lying” as the opposite of “truthful”. Why are both truth and lies considered to be a spectrum instead of endpoints? Is it because nobody can formulate a question, or because the political language is intended to obfuscate?
Informed — what an interesting way to describe voters who are going to take a (measured) action. Informed of what? Informed by who?
As in my example of Rush Limbaugh — tell me who is informed?
Information — Information is what you have when you separate the signal from the noise. How can voters act upon information contained in an advertisement unless they understand what’s truthful and understand the spectrum of truth and deception (aka lies). A promise of future action or the hope of a future outcome is not information — it’s noise.
Advertisement — How do you distinguish what is an advertisement? Is one person who pays to send a message different from another person who is paid to send a message? Is one an advertisement and the other legitimate news?
/rant
Anyways, the article was gated.