IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/19340.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Primaries

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Hummel
  • Richard Holden

Abstract

We analyze a model of US presidential primary elections for a given party. There are two candidates, one of whom is a higher quality candidate. Voters reside in m different states and receive noisy private information about the identity of the superior candidate. States vote in some order, and this order is chosen by a social planner. We provide conditions under which the ordering of the states that maximizes the probability that the higher quality candidate is elected is for states to vote in order from smallest to largest populations and most accurate private information to least accurate private information.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Hummel & Richard Holden, 2013. "Optimal Primaries," NBER Working Papers 19340, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19340
    Note: LE POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w19340.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Battaglini, Marco & Morton, Rebecca & Palfrey, Thomas, 2007. "Efficiency, Equity, and Timing of Voting Mechanisms," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(3), pages 409-424, August.
    2. S. Ali & Navin Kartik, 2012. "Herding with collective preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(3), pages 601-626, November.
    3. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    4. Battaglini, Marco, 2005. "Sequential voting with abstention," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 445-463, May.
    5. Brams, Steven J. & Davis, Morton D., 1982. "Optimal resource allocation in presidential primaries," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 373-388, December.
    6. Patrick Hummel & Brian Knight, 2015. "Sequential Or Simultaneous Elections? A Welfare Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(3), pages 851-887, August.
    7. David Hirshleifer & Sonya Seongyeon Lim & Siew Hong Teoh, 2009. "Driven to Distraction: Extraneous Events and Underreaction to Earnings News," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2289-2325, October.
    8. Bombardini, Matilde & Trebbi, Francesco, 2011. "Votes or money? Theory and evidence from the US Congress," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 587-611, August.
    9. Hummel, Patrick & Holden, Richard, 2014. "Optimal primaries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 64-75.
    10. Eddie Dekel & Michele Piccione, 2000. "Sequential Voting Procedures in Symmetric Binary Elections," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 34-55, February.
    11. Deniz Selman, 2011. "Optimal Sequencing of Presidential Primaries," Working Papers 2011/09, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    12. Brian Knight & Nathan Schiff, 2010. "Momentum and Social Learning in Presidential Primaries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1110-1150.
    13. Klumpp, Tilman & Polborn, Mattias K., 2006. "Primaries and the New Hampshire Effect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1073-1114, August.
    14. Andrea Frazzini, 2006. "The Disposition Effect and Underreaction to News," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 2017-2046, August.
    15. Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter, 2001. "Information aggregation in debate: who should speak first?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 393-421, September.
    16. Aldrich, John H., 1980. "A Dynamic Model of Presidential Nomination Campaigns," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 651-669, September.
    17. Shaw, Daron R., 1999. "The Effect of TV Ads and Candidate Appearances on Statewide Presidential Votes, 1988–96," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(2), pages 345-361, June.
    18. Bartels, Larry M., 1985. "Expectations and Preferences in Presidential Nominating Campaigns," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 804-815, September.
    19. Steven Callander, 2007. "Bandwagons and Momentum in Sequential Voting," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 653-684.
    20. Strumpf, Koleman S, 2002. "Strategic Competition in Sequential Election Contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 111(3-4), pages 377-397, June.
    21. David L. Ikenberry & Sundaresh Ramnath, 2002. "Underreaction to Self-Selected News Events: The Case of Stock Splits," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 489-526, March.
    22. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    23. Abramson, Paul R. & Aldrich, John H. & Paolino, Phil & Rohde, David W., 1992. "“Sophisticated” Voting in the 1988 Presidential Primaries," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(1), pages 55-69, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrick Hummel & Brian Knight, 2015. "Sequential Or Simultaneous Elections? A Welfare Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(3), pages 851-887, August.
    2. Rainer Schwabe, 2015. "Super Tuesday: campaign finance and the dynamics of sequential elections," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(4), pages 927-951, April.
    3. Hummel, Patrick & Holden, Richard, 2014. "Optimal primaries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 64-75.
    4. Francesco Trebbi & Philippe Aghion & Alberto Alesina, 2008. "Electoral Rules and Minority Representation in U.S. Cities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 325-357.

    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. Patrick Hummel & Brian Knight, 2015. "Sequential Or Simultaneous Elections? A Welfare Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(3), pages 851-887, August.
    2. Rainer Schwabe, 2015. "Super Tuesday: campaign finance and the dynamics of sequential elections," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(4), pages 927-951, April.
    3. Hummel, Patrick, 2012. "Sequential voting in large elections with multiple candidates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 341-348.
    4. Brian Knight & Nathan Schiff, 2010. "Momentum and Social Learning in Presidential Primaries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1110-1150.
    5. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Omer Tamuz & Ivo Welch, 2024. "Information Cascades and Social Learning," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1040-1093, September.
    6. Hahn, Volker, 2011. "Sequential aggregation of verifiable information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1447-1454.
    7. Melissa Newham & Rune Midjord, 2018. "Herd Behavior in FDA Committees: A Structural Approach," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1744, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Deniz Selman, 2011. "Optimal Sequencing of Presidential Primaries," Working Papers 2011/09, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    9. Eddie Dekel Jr. & Michele Piccione Jr., 2014. "The Strategic Dis/advantage of Voting Early," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 162-179, November.
    10. Denter, Philipp & Sisak, Dana, 2015. "Do polls create momentum in political competition?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 1-14.
    11. Eyster, Erik & Galeotti, Andrea & Kartik, Navin & Rabin, Matthew, 2014. "Congested observational learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 519-538.
    12. Dmitriy Vorobyev, 2022. "Information disclosure in elections with sequential costly participation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(3), pages 317-344, March.
    13. George Deltas & Mattias K. Polborn, 2019. "Candidate competition and voter learning in the 2000–2012 US presidential primaries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 115-151, January.
    14. Melissa Newham & Rune Midjord, 2019. "Do Expert Panelists Herd? Evidence from FDA Committees," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1825, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Cary Frydman & Ian Krajbich, 2022. "Using Response Times to Infer Others’ Private Information: An Application to Information Cascades," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2970-2986, April.
    16. S. Ali & Navin Kartik, 2012. "Herding with collective preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(3), pages 601-626, November.
    17. Monzón, Ignacio, 2019. "Observational learning in large anonymous games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(2), May.
    18. Gersbach, Hans & Mamageishvili, Akaki & Tejada, Oriol, 2019. "The Effect of Handicaps on Turnout for Large Electorates: An Application to Assessment Voting," CEPR Discussion Papers 13921, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Song, Yangbo & Zhang, Jiahua, 2020. "Social learning with coordination motives," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 81-100.
    20. Battaglini, Marco, 2005. "Sequential voting with abstention," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 445-463, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • K19 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Other

    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:nbr:nberwo:19340. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.