Manipulation through political endorsements

Manipulation through political endorsements

We study elections with three candidates under plurality voting. A candidate is a Condorcet loser if the majority of the voters place that candidate at the bottom of their preference rankings. We rst show that a Condorcet loser might win the election in a three-way race. Next we introduce to the model an endorser who has private information about the true probability distribution of the prefere...

The Persuasion Effects of Political Endorsements

Manipulation in Political Prediction Markets

Network Manipulation (with application to Political issues)

We live in an increasingly interconnected world, one in which a growing number of people turn to the web to make important medical, financial and political decisions [1]. As more people use the Web’s search engines daily as their primary source for locating information on many important issues, search engines are in the position to influence what is perceived as relevant information through the...

Can Celebrity Endorsements Affect Political Outcomes? Evidence from the 2008 US Democratic Presidential Primary

Identifying the effects of political endorsements has historically been difficult. Before the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, Barack Obama was endorsed by talk show host Oprah Winfrey. In this article, we assess the impact of this endorsement using, as measures of Winfrey s influence, subscriptions to her magazine and sales of books she recommends. We find that her endorsement increased O...