There’s a sender and two receivers, L and R. The sender has data, the state of the world, and may decide. There’s a socially optimum determination, the moral determination, which is determined by the true state of the world. The sender’s preferences rely upon the hole between her determination and the moral determination and on her “status” – extra on status beneath.
If the sender solely cared about making the moral determination, her drawback is straightforward – she implements the socially optimum coverage for the privately noticed state. However she additionally cares how a lot help her determination will get from the 2 receivers.The sender may care about her help as a result of it impacts the long term viability of the establishment she belongs to. Or she may simply wish to be seen as being bipartisan. So the sender’s reputational considerations might come up for moral causes.
The receivers have no idea the sender’s preferences – is the sender moral or biased in the direction of one receiver or the opposite? A receiver is extra prone to help the sender the nearer is the sender’s determination is to his personal coverage choice. The receivers’ preferences have a typical worth part. They could doubtlessly replace their preferences based mostly on the data content material of the sender’s determination.
Suppose the sender faces a call the place the place the moral determination favors L. If she makes that call, she loses help from R and that’s dangerous for her status. So, she biases her determination rightward to keep up help. Maybe she makes the identical rightish determination for a set of data states from left to proper in a pooling equilibrium. She loses help from the L receiver however will get extra help from the R receiver. For moral causes, she makes a call which isn’t moral from the one interval perspective.
Therefore, the press presents “either side” even when it is aware of one facet is true. The press has an excellent excessive normal of proof for calling somebody out as a liar. Obama gave McConnell veto energy over asserting Russian interference within the election. He may have gone forward and introduced the interference himself at the price of being non-bipartisan however he didn’t. Comey broke FBI and DoJ coverage by commenting when himself dismissing the case towards Hillary Clinton. However he went with coverage by not discussing the investigation of Russian interference and communication with members of the Trump marketing campaign.
So, this framework helps to unify the strategic logic behind the way in which completely different establishments and decision-makers function(d). Nevertheless it additionally reveals a flaw of their selections. This comes from the frequent worth part of the receivers’ preferences. Receivers replace on what the precise determination is predicated on what they study in equilibrium from the sender’s motion. Some might change their choice from left to proper or vice-versa based mostly on what they study. The truth is, majority opinion might change. If there may be some final result that is determined by majority opinion like an election, this change could make dramatic penalties. If the price of making an error is giant, the sender ought to situation on this occasion after they decide their message. Therefore, if the reputational loss from altering majority opinion is giant sufficient, the one interval moral determination and the long term moral determination would be the identical.
So, on this interpretation, the principle Comey-NYT-Obama mistake was to not situation on the occasion they have been pivotal however as a substitute to deal with what was possible given the polls.
(HT: That is hypothesis based mostly on Stephen Morris’s paper on Political Correctness and Ely-Valimaki on Dangerous Popularity. Right here I’m positing a number of principals somewhat than only one principal and there are is a few frequent worth part to principals’ preferences.)
