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Campaigns, Political Mobility, and Communication

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Abstract

We present a model of elections in which interest group donations allow candidates to shift policy positions. We show that if donations were prohibited, then a unique equilibrium regarding the position choices of candidates would exist. With unrestricted financing of political campaigns two equilibria emerge, depending on whether a majority of interest groups runs to support the leftist or rightist candidate. The equilibria generate a variety of new features of campaign games and may help identify the objective functions of candidates empirically.

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  • Hans Gersbach, 2011. "Campaigns, Political Mobility, and Communication," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 11/143, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:eth:wpswif:11-143
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    Cited by:

    1. Hoferer, Moritz & Böttcher, Lucas & Herrmann, Hans J. & Gersbach, Hans, 2020. "The impact of technologies in political campaigns," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 538(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    elections; campaign contributions; interest groups;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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