The Impact of the Media on Policy Outcomes with Time inconsistent voters

This paper analyzes the impact of the media on the political outcome when voters are time-inconsistent by building a two-period probabilistic game based on Lindbeck and Weibull (1987) and Stromberg (2004a). If the policies of politicians favour the most reactive voters' preferences and information increases the reactivity of voters, then the model predicts that when voters have diering degrees of time-inconsistency, the media can amplify or diminish the in uence of the voters behavioural distortion. The direction and magnitude of the eect will depend on whether the media's distribution of information causes a shift of power in the voters that determine politicians policy-platforms towards the more or less consistent voters, and on the cost of anticipating consumption.