Title
Private polling in elections and voter welfare
Abstract
We study elections in which two candidates poll voters about their preferred policies before taking policy positions. In the essentially unique equilibrium, candidates who receive moderate signals adopt more extreme platforms than their information suggests, but candidates with more extreme signals may moderate their platforms. Policy convergence does not maximize voters' welfare. Although candidates' platforms diverge in equilibrium, they do not do so as much as voters would like. We find that the electorate always prefers less correlation in candidate signals, and thus private over public polling. Some noise in the polling technology raises voters' welfare.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1016/j.jet.2008.05.013
Journal of Economic Theory
Keywords
DocType
Volume
P16,C72,D72
Journal
144
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
5
0022-0531
7
PageRank 
References 
Authors
1.15
6
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Dan Bernhardt1133.84
John Duggan2241145.72
Francesco Squintani37915.71