ISET: "The Politics of Attention" (joint with Lin Hu at Australia National University)

Slides

 

Abstract

We develop a theory of how candidates' attempts to capture voters' limited attention shape political outcomes. Following the seminal work of Downs (1957), we assume that voters are rationally inattentive, meaning that they can process the most useful information for decision making at a cost measured by entropy reduction. In an otherwise standard Downsian model of electoral competition, we fully characterize equilibrium policies and voting decisions and find two salient patterns emerging as we increase the attention cost or garble the news technology: first, more ideology-based outcomes can be attained in equilibrium; second, candidates enlarge the difference between their policy or issue positions in order to capture voter's attention. We supplement our theoretical analysis with historical accounts, and discuss its relevance in the new era featured with great media choices and distractions, as well as the rise of partisan media and fake news.