While objective news coverage is vital to democracy, media bias can seriously distort collective decisions. This Paper develops a voting model where citizens are uncertain about the welfare effects induced by alternative policy options and derive information about those effects from the mass...

The determinants of government responsiveness to its citizens is a key issue in political economy. Here we develop a model based on the solution of political agency problems. Having a more informed and politically active electorate strengthens incentives for governments to be responsive. This...

What is the effect of liberalizing a country’s broadcasting system on the level of information of its citizens? To analyse this question, we first construct a model of state monopoly broadcasting where the government selects the amount of television news coverage of different public policy...

We review the burgeoning political economy literature on the influence of mass media on politics and policy. This survey, which covers both theory and empirics, is organized along four main themes: transparency, capture, informative coverage, and ideological bias. We distill some general lessons...