The War of Information

Abstract

We analyze political campaigns between two parties with opposing interests. Parties pay a cost to provide information to a voter who chooses the policy. The information flow is continuous and stops when parties quit. The parties' actions are strategic substitutes: a party with a lower cost provides more but its opponent provides less information. For voters, the parties' actions are complements and raising the low-cost party's cost may be beneficial. Asymmetric information adds a signaling component in the form of a belief-threshold beyond which unfavorable information is offset by the informed party's decision to continue campaigning.