caa a22 4500 477077846 CHVBK 20180405111443.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170330e19960701xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF00130405 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF00130405 Towards a positive theory of political rhetoric: Why do politicians lie? [Elektronische Daten] [Michael Davis, Michael Ferrantino] This paper presents a model in which politicians can increase the probability of election by making exaggerated claims about the benefits of their own platform — referred to as positive campaigning — and by exaggerating the undesirable characteristics of their rival — i.e., negative campaigning. Such lies may be detected at some point in the future and thus result in a costly loss in reputation. Thus the politician must tradeoff immediate benefits against potential future costs. Of course this problem is similar to any commercial endeavor — a car maker, for example, is tempted to claim that his car is better and the competition's is worse than it is. But it is shown that the lack of transferable property rights to political office makes lying more likely in political markets. It is also shown that there is a natural tendency for politicians to engage in more negative campaigning. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996 Davis Michael Department of Economics, Southern Methodist University, 75275, Dallas, TX aut Ferrantino Michael Department of Economics, Southern Methodist University, 75275, Dallas, TX aut Public Choice Kluwer Academic Publishers; http://www.wkap.nl 88/1-2(1996-07-01), 1-13 0048-5829 88:1-2<1 1996 88 11127 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00130405 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00130405 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Davis Michael Department of Economics, Southern Methodist University, 75275, Dallas, TX aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Ferrantino Michael Department of Economics, Southern Methodist University, 75275, Dallas, TX aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Public Choice Kluwer Academic Publishers; http://www.wkap.nl 88/1-2(1996-07-01), 1-13 0048-5829 88:1-2<1 1996 88 11127 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer