Further processing options
available via Open Access

(Dis)honest politicians and the value of transparency for campaign promises

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Authors and Corporations: Lang, Matthias (Author), Schudy, Simeon (Author)
Other Authors: Schudy, Simeon 1981- [Author]
Type of Resource: E-Book
Language: English
published:
Series: CESifo GmbH: CESifo working papers ; no. 8366 (2020)
Subjects:
prospective voting
retrospective voting
promises
promise breaking
lying costs
preferences for truth-telling
experiment
Graue Literatur
Source: Verbunddaten SWB
Lizenzfreie Online-Ressourcen
Description
Summary: Promises are prevalent in many economic environments. They offer the opportunity to honor future obligations when promise keeping is observable. This paper studies the value of transparency and asks whether promises still work if such transparency is missing. We focus on the context of campaign promises where institutional environments, for example, quality of the media, may determine whether voters observe promise keeping. Building on recent evidence about preferences for truth-telling, we show how lying costs shape promise competition when promise keeping can(not) be observed. We identify the causal effects of opacity in a laboratory experiment and find that opacity leads to more generous promises, but also to more promise breaking. Nonetheless, with opacity, elected officials do appropriate similar rents as in transparent institutions. Preferences for truth-telling and (instrumental) reputational concerns explain these findings and shape the value of transparency.
Physical Description: 1 Online-Ressource (circa 65 Seiten); Illustrationen