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Electoral competition under imperfect information

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  • Jean-François Laslier
  • Karine Straeten

Abstract

This paper considers electoral competition between two office-motivated parties and one voter, in the presence of two alternative policies and under imperfect information. The theory of refinements of Nash equilibrium predicts the outcome of this three-player game: both parties faithfully use their information and try to find the best policy for the voter. We discuss the meaning of this model for Politics and prove that the same result holds for any number of voters, provided that parties are expected plurality maximizers and that voters satisfy a version of the sincere voting assumption adapted to this strategic setting. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2004

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-François Laslier & Karine Straeten, 2004. "Electoral competition under imperfect information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 24(2), pages 419-446, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:24:y:2004:i:2:p:419-446
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-003-0414-z
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    2. Archishman Chakraborty & Parikshit Ghosh & Jaideep Roy, 2020. "Expert-Captured Democracies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(6), pages 1713-1751, June.
    3. Thomas Jensen, 2013. "Elections, Information, and State-Dependent Candidate Quality," Discussion Papers 13-03, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    4. Jean-François Laslier, 2005. "Party Objectives in the “Divide a Dollar” Electoral Competition," Studies in Choice and Welfare, in: David Austen-Smith & John Duggan (ed.), Social Choice and Strategic Decisions, pages 113-130, Springer.
    5. Gratton, Gabriele, 2014. "Pandering and electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 163-179.
    6. Millner, Antony & Ollivier, Hélène & Simon, Leo, 2020. "Confirmation bias and signaling in Downsian elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    7. Schipper, Burkhard C. & Woo, Hee Yeul, 2019. "Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 14(1), pages 41-88, January.
    8. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2022. "Wisdom of the crowd? Information aggregation in representative democracy," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 86-95.
    9. Zhang, Qiaoxi, 2020. "Vagueness in multidimensional proposals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 307-328.
    10. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2014. "Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning," Working Papers 148, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    11. Mike Felgenhauer, 2012. "Revealing information in electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 55-68, October.
    12. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 46, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    13. Elena Manzoni & Stefan P. Penczynski, 2018. "Last Minute Policies and the Incumbency Advantage," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 19(3), pages 280-308, August.
    14. Foucart, Renaud & Schmidt, Robert C., 2019. "(Almost) efficient information transmission in elections," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 147-165.
    15. Iryna Topolyan, 2013. "Existence of perfect equilibria: a direct proof," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 53(3), pages 697-705, August.
    16. Eguia, Jon X. & Nicolo, Antonio, 2019. "Information and targeted spending," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(2), May.
    17. Laslier, Jean-Francois & Trannoy, Alain & Van Der Straeten, Karine, 2003. "Voting under ignorance of job skills of unemployed: the overtaxation bias," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 595-626, March.
    18. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2017. "Wisdom of the Crowd? Information Aggregation and Electoral Incentives," MPRA Paper 82753, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Ascensión Andina-Díaz, 2016. "Information in elections: Do third inflexible candidates always promote truthful behavior?," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 307-339, August.
    20. McMurray, Joseph, 2022. "Polarization and pandering in common-interest elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 150-161.
    21. Thomas Jensen, 2015. "Elections, Information, and State-Dependent Candidate Quality," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(5), pages 702-723, October.

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