This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
  4. May 2015
  5. State Censorship

State Censorship

  • Mehdi Shadmehr
  • Dan Bernhardt
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 7, no. 2, May 2015
(pp. 280-307)
Download Full Text PDF

Abstract

We characterize a ruler's decision of whether to censor media reports that convey information to citizens who decide whether to revolt. We find: (i) a ruler gains (his ex ante expected payoff increases) by committing to censoring slightly less than he does in equilibrium: his equilibrium calculations ignore that censoring less causes citizens to update more positively following no news; (ii) a ruler gains from higher censorship costs if and only if censorship costs exceed a critical threshold; (iii) a bad ruler prefers a very strong media to a very weak one, but a good ruler prefers the opposite. (JEL D72, D74, D83)

Citation

Shadmehr, Mehdi, and Dan Bernhardt. 2015. "State Censorship." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 7 (2): 280-307. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20130221

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
  • D74 Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
  • D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
There are no comments for this article.
Login to Comment