On 28th November OxTalks will move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events' (full details are available on the Staff Gateway).
There will be an OxTalks freeze beginning on Friday 14th November. This means you will need to publish any of your known events to OxTalks by then as there will be no facility to publish or edit events in that fortnight. During the freeze, all events will be migrated to the new Oxford Events site. It will still be possible to view events on OxTalks during this time.
If you have any questions, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Why are there few candidate debates in low information elections where they have the greatest potential to inform vote choices? One explanation is that candidates have weak incentives to reveal their qualifications and resources to voters. Indeed, in private elicitation of 400 Parliamentary candidates in Sierra Leone only one quarter volunteer to debate. Yet introducing guaranteed public dissemination platforms sharply increases their participation. Alternatively, debates may lack market viability. Counter to this, we document high voter willingness to pay to access debates and private sector interest in disseminating them. To satisfy voter demand, public platforms can remedy weak incentives by imposing nonparticipation costs on reluctant politicians.
