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arXiv · 2406.17084

Information Revelation in Constant-Sum Games: Elections and Beyond

Navin Kartik·Francesco Squintani·Katrin Tinn
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Abstract

Do elections aggregate the private information of office-motivated candidates? Our answer stems from a general result for two-player constant-sum Bayesian games with type-independent payoffs. Under a "completeness" statistical condition, every "identifiable" equilibrium is an ex-post equilibrium. Applied to Downsian elections, the ex-post property implies a sharp bound on information aggregation: equilibrium voter welfare is at best equal to the efficient use of a single candidate's information. In canonical specifications, politicians may "anti-pander" (overreact to their information), whereas some degree of pandering would be socially beneficial. We discuss other applications of the ex-post result.

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Navin Kartik, Francesco Squintani, Katrin Tinn. 2024-06-24. Information Revelation in Constant-Sum Games: Elections and Beyond. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.17084

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