This paper models a purely informational mechanism behind the incumbency advantage. In a two-period electoral campaign with two policy issues, an incumbent and a possibly more competent challenger compete for election by voters who are heterogeneously informed about the state of the world. Due to the asymmetries in government responsibility between candidates, the incumbent's statement may convey information on the relevance of the issues to voters. In equilibrium, the incumbent sometimes strategically releases his statement early and thus signals the importance of his signature issue to the voters. We find that, since the incumbent's positioning on the issue reveals private information which the challenger can use in later statements, the incumbent's incentives to distort the campaign are decreasing in his quality, as previously documented by the empirical literature. The distortions arising in equilibrium are decreasing in the incumbent's true competence; however, the distortions may be increasing in the incumbent's expected competence on his signature issue.

Manzoni, E., Penczynski, S. (2018). Last Minute Policies and the Incumbency Advantage. GERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, 19(3), 280-308 [10.1111/geer.12130].

Last Minute Policies and the Incumbency Advantage

Manzoni, E;
2018

Abstract

This paper models a purely informational mechanism behind the incumbency advantage. In a two-period electoral campaign with two policy issues, an incumbent and a possibly more competent challenger compete for election by voters who are heterogeneously informed about the state of the world. Due to the asymmetries in government responsibility between candidates, the incumbent's statement may convey information on the relevance of the issues to voters. In equilibrium, the incumbent sometimes strategically releases his statement early and thus signals the importance of his signature issue to the voters. We find that, since the incumbent's positioning on the issue reveals private information which the challenger can use in later statements, the incumbent's incentives to distort the campaign are decreasing in his quality, as previously documented by the empirical literature. The distortions arising in equilibrium are decreasing in the incumbent's true competence; however, the distortions may be increasing in the incumbent's expected competence on his signature issue.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
incumbency advantage, electoral competition, information revelation
English
30-nov-2019
2018
19
3
280
308
none
Manzoni, E., Penczynski, S. (2018). Last Minute Policies and the Incumbency Advantage. GERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, 19(3), 280-308 [10.1111/geer.12130].
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/48942
Citazioni
  • Scopus 1
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 0
Social impact