|
Archive@NYU >
Stern School of Business >
Economics Working Papers >
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/26056
|
| Title: | Information Revolutions and the Overthrow of Autocratic Regimes |
| Authors: | Edmond, Chris |
| Keywords: | coordination
propaganda
regime change
global games |
| Issue Date: | Sep-2007 |
| Series/Report no.: | EC-07-26 |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a model of information quality and political regime
change. If enough citizens act against a regime, it is overthrown.
Citizens are imperfectly informed about how hard this will be and the
regime can, at a cost, engage in propaganda so that at face-value it
seems hard. The citizens are rational and evaluate their information
knowing the regime's incentives. The model makes three predictions.
First, even rational citizens may not correctly infer the amount of
manipulation. Second, as the intrinsic quality of information available
becomes sufficiently high, the regime is more likely to survive. Third,
the regime benefits from ambiguity about the amount of manipulation, and
consequently, as it becomes cheaper to manipulate, the regime is also
more likely to survive. Key results of the benchmark static model extend
to a simple dynamic setting where there are waves of unrest. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/26056 |
| Appears in Collections: | Economics Working Papers
|
All items in Faculty Digital Archive are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved.
|
