Mixed Equilibrium in a Downsian Model with a Favored Candidate

Aragonès, Enriqueta; Palfrey, Thomas R.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.246527

Cited by 50 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Our model relates also to the literature on spatial competition with valence initiated by Stokes (1963) and later developed by , Groseclose (2001) and Aragones and Palfrey (2002). In those models, one of the candidates holds an advantage due to exogenous non policy factors, called valence factors, such as charisma, better campaign funds or higher intelligence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Although these popular initiatives are binding, the reelection chances of an incumbent candidate may still depend on whether the candidate endorses or not such proposals. 5 The available evidence suggests that popular initiatives do provide incumbents with an electoral advantage. Bali and Davis (2007) 3 More prominent examples are the two referenda called to decide whether the country should join the UN and the EU in 1986 and 1992 respectively, which yielded a majoritarian rejection (76% and 50%) despite the strong backing of all major political parties.…”

Section: Referenda and Popular Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Xefteris (2011) analyzes this issue. 5 Actually, some popular initiatives may express discontent with the incumbent legislator or even aim to weaken him (Bali and Davis, 2007).…”

Section: Referenda and Popular Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Incumbency (Dis)Advantage When Citizens Can Propose

Sánchez‐Pagés¹,

d'Economia

2014

SSRN Journal

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This paper analyses the problem that an incumbent faces during the legislature when deciding how to react to citizen proposals such as the outcome of referenda or popular initiatives. We argue that these proposals constitute a potential source of electoral disadvantage when citizens factor in their evaluation of the incumbent his reaction to these proposals. This is because an incumbent politician may jeopardize his re-election by implementing policies close to his preferred ones but unpopular among the electorate. We characterize conditions under which this potential disadvantage becomes in fact an electoral advantage for the incumbent. We fi nd that the choices of the incumbent during the legislature will be closest to citizens policy proposals when the intensity of electoral competition is neither too soft nor too tough. Finally, we use our results to discuss some implications of the use of mechanisms such as referenda and popular assemblies on electoral competition and on the incumbency advantage phenomenon. Acknowledgements: 1A previous version of this paper circulated under the title "The disadvantage of winning an election". The present version supersedes that one. Aragonès acknowledges nancial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, grant number ECO2009-08820, the Catalan Government, grant number 2009 SGR 1126, and the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. We would like to thank Miguel Angel Ballester, Micael Castanheira, Luca Merlino, Maggie Penn, Clara Ponsatí, Norman Scho eld, Jim Snyder, Joel Sobel, participants at the rst APE-X meeting in Brussels, the MOVE conference in Barcelona and the IAE s informal seminar for their useful comments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Referenda and Popular Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Incumbency (Dis)Advantage When Citizens Can Propose

Sánchez‐Pagés¹,

d'Economia

2014

SSRN Journal

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“…2 Alternative models with non-median outcomes include analyses that expand the dimensions of the outcomes (e.g. Hinich 1977), include valence, (Aragones andPalfrey 2002, Groseclose 2001), have more than two candidates (e.g. Hotelling 1929, Palfrey 1984, have citizen candidates who run at a cost (Besley andCoate 1997, Osborne andSlivinsk 1996), are based on probabilistic voting (e.g.…”

Section: Nomination By a Vote Of Party Membersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nomination Processes and Policy Outcomes

Jackson

Mathevet²,

Mattes³

2007

QJPS

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We provide a set of new models of three different processes by which political parties nominate candidates for a general election: nominations by party leaders, nominations by a vote of party members, and nominations by a spending competition among potential candidates. We show that more extreme outcomes can emerge from spending competition than from nominations by votes or by party leaders, and that non-median outcomes can result via any of these processes. When voters (and potential nominees) are free to switch political parties, then median outcomes ensue when nominations are decided by a vote but not when nominations are decided by spending competition.Nominations are a critical part of many elections. While the modeling of elections is extensive, there are no systematic studies of how the specifics of the nomination process affect election outcomes. In this paper we develop and analyze three simple models of prominent nomination processes, all within the same basic election setting. We show that the differences in nomination process can have a large impact on the election outcome.In particular, we consider a setting in which two competing political parties simultaneously nominate candidates (out of their respective memberships) for an election. If elected, a candidate chooses his or her most preferred policy from a one-dimensional set of potential policies. All voters (who compose the parties and are thus also the potential MS

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“…The equilibrium properties of spatial competition between two candidates who differ in quality have been analyzed theoretically. Recent papers by Ansolabehere and Snyder (2000), Aragones and Palfrey (2002), Groseclose (2001) and Hummel (2010) report a number of theoretical results about the equilibrium properties of spatial competition between two candidates who differ in quality. 2 These papers use a framework for studying the effect of candidate quality on political competition, based on the standard Downsian model competition between two candidates with an important twist: any voter will strictly prefer the "higher quality" candidate to the "lower quality" candidate if the candidates locate so that the voter is indifferent between the two candidates on the policy dimension.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Candidate quality in a Downsian model with a continuous policy space

Aragonès

Xefteris

2012

Games and Economic Behavior

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This paper characterizes a mixed strategy Nash equilibrium in a one-dimensional Downsian model of two-candidate elections with a continuous policy space, where candidates are office motivated and one candidate enjoys a nonpolicy advantage over the other candidate. We assume that voters have quadratic preferences over policies and that their ideal points are drawn from a uniform distribution over the unit interval. In our equilibrium the advantaged candidate chooses the expected median voter with probability one and the disadvantaged candidate uses a mixed strategy that is symmetric around it. We show that this equilibrium exists if the number of voters is large enough relative to the size of the advantage.

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Mixed Equilibrium in a Downsian Model with a Favored Candidate

Cited by 50 publications

References 13 publications

Incumbency (Dis)Advantage When Citizens Can Propose

Incumbency (Dis)Advantage When Citizens Can Propose

Nomination Processes and Policy Outcomes

Candidate quality in a Downsian model with a continuous policy space

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