Information transmission in the absence of commitment

Abstract

I consider an election with candidate entry and a state variable that affects all players' utility, as it translates their ideal points. Candidates are informed of the realization of the state, whilst voters are not. I study the effect of candidates' commitment on equilibria. I show that if they cannot commit, their private information is of no consequence for the election (i.e. even in a decisiontheoretic sense). Instead, when they can commit this is a standard signaling game.