IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2409.15946.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Political Economy of Zero-Sum Thinking

Author

Listed:
  • S. Nageeb Ali
  • Maximilian Mihm
  • Lucas Siga

Abstract

This paper offers a strategic rationale for zero-sum thinking in elections. We show that asymmetric information and distributional considerations together make voters wary of policies supported by others. This force impels a majority of voters to support policies contrary to their preferences and information. Our analysis identifies and interprets a form of "adverse correlation" that is necessary and sufficient for zero-sum thinking to prevail in equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • S. Nageeb Ali & Maximilian Mihm & Lucas Siga, 2024. "The Political Economy of Zero-Sum Thinking," Papers 2409.15946, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2409.15946
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.15946
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Atsushi Kajii & Stephen Morris, 1997. "The Robustness of Equilibria to Incomplete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(6), pages 1283-1310, November.
    2. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2013. "A Political Theory of Populism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 771-805.
    3. Carlsson, Hans & van Damme, Eric, 1993. "Global Games and Equilibrium Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 989-1018, September.
    4. Stephen Coate & Michael Conlin, 2004. "A Group Rule–Utilitarian Approach to Voter Turnout: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1476-1504, December.
    5. Timothy Feddersen & Alvaro Sandroni, 2006. "A Theory of Participation in Elections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1271-1282, September.
    6. Kfir Eliaz & Ran Spiegler, 2020. "A Model of Competing Narratives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(12), pages 3786-3816, December.
    7. Ronny Razin, 2003. "Signaling and Election Motivations in a Voting Model with Common Values and Responsive Candidates," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(4), pages 1083-1119, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sobbrio, Francesco & Navarra, Pietro, 2010. "Electoral participation and communicative voting in Europe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 185-207, June.
    2. Faravelli, Marco & Man, Priscilla & Walsh, Randall, 2015. "Mandate and paternalism: A theory of large elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 1-23.
    3. Antonio Cabrales & Rosemarie Nagel & Roc Armenter, 2007. "Equilibrium selection through incomplete information in coordination games: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 221-234, September.
    4. Rodrigo J. Harrison & Roberto Munoz, 2003. "Stability and Equilibrium Selection in a Link Formation Game," Game Theory and Information 0306004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Li, Fei & Song, Yangbo & Zhao, Mofei, 2023. "Global manipulation by local obfuscation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    6. Ming Li & Dipjyoti Majumdar, 2010. "A Psychologically Based Model of Voter Turnout," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(5), pages 979-1002, October.
    7. Alastair Smith & Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Tom LaGatta, 2017. "Group incentives and rational voting1," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 299-326, April.
    8. Chen, Yi-Chun & Mueller-Frank, Manuel & Pai, Mallesh M., 2022. "Continuous implementation with direct revelation mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    9. Robert P. Inman, 2008. "Federalism's Values and the Value of Federalism," NBER Working Papers 13735, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Jun Honda, 2015. "Games with the Total Bandwagon Property," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp197, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    11. , & , & ,, 2008. "Monotone methods for equilibrium selection under perfect foresight dynamics," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(2), June.
    12. Alan Gerber & Mitchell Hoffman & John Morgan & Collin Raymond, 2020. "One in a Million: Field Experiments on Perceived Closeness of the Election and Voter Turnout," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 287-325, July.
    13. Shota Fujishima, 2015. "The emergence of cooperation through leadership," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 44(1), pages 17-36, February.
    14. Oyama, Daisuke & Tercieux, Olivier, 2009. "Iterated potential and robustness of equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1726-1769, July.
    15. Shayo, Moses & Harel, Alon, 2012. "Non-consequentialist voting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 299-313.
    16. Mechtenberg, Lydia & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2019. "Voter motivation and the quality of democratic choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 241-259.
    17. Zudenkova, Galina, 2010. "Sincere Lobby Formation," Working Papers 2072/151545, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    18. Fabrizio Germano, 2006. "On some geometry and equivalence classes of normal form games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 34(4), pages 561-581, November.
    19. Mr. Etienne B Yehoue, 2005. "Clusters As a Driving Engine for FDI," IMF Working Papers 2005/193, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Antonio Merlo & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2018. "External validation of voter turnout models by concealed parameter recovery," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 297-314, July.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2409.15946. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.