ON THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION MANIPULATION IN DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS
研究民主选举中候选人操纵公共信号对选民的影响，发现信息操纵损害候选人选择并加剧政治态度分化，且当轻信选民比例足够大时二者相互强化。
Abstract This article studies information manipulation during a democratic election. In our model, candidates manipulate public signals about their welfare impact, and a fraction of the electorate naively ignores manipulation. We derive three main findings. First, information manipulation is detrimental to candidate selection and aggravates the dispersion of political attitudes. Second, both educating voters and creating institutions to eliminate false information may involve a trade‐off between improving candidate selection and aggravating the dispersion of political attitudes. Third, if and only if the share of naive voters is sufficiently large, information manipulation and the dispersion of political attitudes are mutually reinforcing.