• AEA in the news
  • March 4, 2016

Election 2016: How too many Debates Contributed to the Rise of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders

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The International Business Times covered a recent American Economic Journal: Microeconomics study in an article about the 2016 presidential race. In Information and Extremism in Elections, authors Raphael Boleslavsky and Christopher Cotton argue that longer, more informative campaigns tend to highlight characteristics of a candidate that have nothing to do with policy (such as an inspirational message or personal gravitas). This reduces the emphasis on finding a candidate who matches median voter policy preferences, and leads parties to nominate more extreme candidates.