On the nature of equilibria in a Downsian model with candidate valence

Hummel, Patrick

doi:10.1016/j.geb.2010.01.012

Cited by 45 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The incumbent government was so unpopular that former ALP leader Bill Hayden quipped that "a drover's dog could lead the Labor Party to victory, the way the country is and the way the opinion polls are showing up..." 12 During the election and in government, the party-whose constitution still declares it to have "the objective of the democratic socialization of industry, production, distribution and exchange"-promoted tariff reductions, tax reforms, limits on union activity, transitioning from centralized bargaining to enterprise bargaining, privatization of government enterprises, and banking deregulation. Aragones and Palfrey (2002) and Hummel (2010) characterize equilibria in a Downsian setup with purely office-motivated candidates and a deterministic net valence advantage. As in our setting, the advantaged candidate benefits from raising the salience of this valence advantage.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Race to the Base

Bernhardt¹,

Buisseret

Hidir

2020

American Economic Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We study multi-district legislative elections between two office-seeking parties when one party has an initial valence advantage that may shift and even reverse during the campaign; and, each party cares not only about winning a majority, but also about its share of seats. When the initial imbalance favoring one party is small, each party targets the median voter. For moderate imbalances, the advantaged party maintains the centre-ground, but the disadvantaged party retreats to target its core supporters; and for large imbalances, the advantaged party advances toward its opponent, raiding its moderate supporters in pursuit of an outsized majority. (JEL D72)

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Race to the Base

Bernhardt¹,

Buisseret

Hidir

2020

American Economic Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…2 The main mechanism that drives the entry of candidates in my model is the citizens' uncertainty about the candidates' valence. This makes my paper closely related to the literature on valence and the effect of non-positional issues on electoral competition (Aragones and Palfrey, 2002;Aragonès and Xefteris, 2012;Hummel, 2010;Stokes, 1963). A large part of the literature on valence has focused on the relationship between quality and the endogenous policy positioning of two fixed candidates.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 77%

Valence uncertainty and the nature of the candidate pool in elections

Lonardo

2016

Journal of Theoretical Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Political parties in US politics are becoming increasingly polarized, with a growing number of extreme candidates entering electoral races. Why would extremists challenge more moderate opponents, since their chances of winning are supposedly very slim? I develop a model of electoral competition and endogenous entry to show that extremists rely on the possibility that the campaign might reveal information about the opponents' quality that can induce some voters to change their electoral decision. The weight voters place on candidates' valence determines the incidence of uncontested elections and the degree of asymmetry in polarization of the candidates' policy positions in contested elections. Finally, I extend the model to consider asymmetric information about individual valence levels. I show that uncontested races are still possible in equilibrium, that in contested races at least one candidate has high valence, and the valence-advantaged candidate can be the one with the more extreme policy stance.

show abstract

“…116 With respect to both kinds of e¢ ciency, the sequential voting method is slightly more e¢ cient but most of the di¤erences are either not signi…cantly di¤erent from zero or signi…cant but small in magnitude. In both cases, as expected, there is little di¤erence in informational e¢ ciency and somewhat greater di¤erence in economic e¢ ciency.…”

Section: Condorcet Jury Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

6. Experiments in Political Economy

Palfrey

2016

The Handbook of Experimental Economics, Volume Two

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

On the nature of equilibria in a Downsian model with candidate valence

Cited by 45 publications

References 32 publications

The Race to the Base

The Race to the Base

Valence uncertainty and the nature of the candidate pool in elections

6. Experiments in Political Economy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About