Political Correctness
Publication Year
2001
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
An informed advisor wishes to convey her valuable information to an uninformed decision maker with identical preferences. Thus she has a current incentive to truthfully reveal her information. But if the decision maker thinks that the advisor might be biased in favor of one decision and the advisor does not wish to be thought to be biased, the advisor has a reputational incentive to lie. If the advisor is sufficiently concerned about her reputation, no information is conveyed in equilibrium. In a repeated version of this game, the advisor will care (instrumentally) about her reputation simply because she wants her valuable and unbiased advice to have an impact on future decisions.
Keywords
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior (D72),
Political,
Information,
Search, Learning, Information and Knowledge, Communication, Belief, Unawareness (D83),
Economic Sociology, Economic Anthropology, Language, Social and Economic Stratification (Z13),
Reputation
Journal
Journal of Political Economy
Volume
109
Issue
2
Pages
- 265
Date Published
April 2001
ISBN
0022-3808, 0022-3808