American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics
ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)
Targeted Advertising in Elections
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
(pp. 115–49)
Abstract
How does targeted advertising influence electoral outcomes? This paper presents a one-dimensional spatial model of voting in which a privately informed challenger persuades voters to support him over the status quo. I show that targeted advertising enables the challenger to persuade voters with opposing preferences and swing elections decided by such voters. Ex ante commitment power is unnecessary—the challenger succeeds by strategically revealing different pieces of verifiable information to different voters. Publicizing all political ads would mitigate the negative effects of targeted advertising and help voters collectively make the right choice.Citation
Titova, Maria. 2026. "Targeted Advertising in Elections." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 18 (4): 115–49. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20240479Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- M37 Advertising