IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/502.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mixed equilibrium in a Downsian model with a favored candidate

Author

Listed:
  • Enriqueta Aragonés
  • Thomas R. Palfrey

Abstract

This paper examines competition in the standard one- dimensional Downsian model of two-candidate elections, but where one candidate (A) enjoys an advantage over the other candidate (D). Voters' preferences are Euclidean, but any voter will vote for candidate A over candidate D unless D is closer to her ideal point by some fixed distance \delta. The location of the median voter's ideal point is uncertain, and its distribution is commonly known by both candidates. The candidates simultaneously choose locations to maximize the probability of victory. Pure strategy equilibria often fails to exist in this model, except under special conditions about \delta and the distribution of the median ideal point. We solve for the essentially unique symmetric mixed equilibrium, show that candidate A adopts more moderate policies than candidate D, and obtain some comparative statics results about the probability of victory and the expected distance between the two candidates' policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Enriqueta Aragonés & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2000. "Mixed equilibrium in a Downsian model with a favored candidate," Economics Working Papers 502, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:502
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/502.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernhardt, M. Daniel & Ingerman, Daniel E., 1985. "Candidate reputations and the `incumbency effect'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 47-67, June.
    2. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521428316, January.
    3. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, I: Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26.
    4. Popkin, Samuel & Gorman, John W. & Phillips, Charles & Smith, Jeffrey A., 1976. "Comment: What Have You Done for Me Lately? Toward An Investment Theory of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 779-805, September.
    5. Stokes, Donald E., 1963. "Spatial Models of Party Competition," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(2), pages 368-377, June.
    6. Ansolabehere, Stephen & Snyder, James M, Jr, 2000. "Valence Politics and Equilibrium in Spatial Election Models," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 103(3-4), pages 327-336, June.
    7. Mark M. Berger & Michael C. Munger & Richard F. Potthoff, 2000. "The Downsian Model Predicts Divergence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 228-240, April.
    8. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521417815, January.
    9. Adams, James, 1999. "Policy Divergence in Multicandidate Probabilistic Spatial Voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 100(1-2), pages 103-122, 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. Aragonès, Enriqueta & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2012. "Candidate quality in a Downsian model with a continuous policy space," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 464-480.
    2. Paul Redmond, 2017. "Incumbent-challenger and open-seat elections in a spatial model of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 79-97, January.
    3. Aragones, Enriqueta & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "The Effect of Candidate Quality on Electoral Equilibrium: An Experimental Study," Working Papers 1138, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    4. Michael K Miller, 2011. "Seizing the mantle of change: Modeling candidate quality as effectiveness instead of valence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(1), pages 52-68, January.
    5. Dodlova, Marina & Zudenkova, Galina, 2021. "Incumbents’ performance and political extremism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    6. Ashworth, Scott & Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, 2009. "Elections with platform and valence competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 191-216, September.
    7. James F. Adams, 2015. "Competing for votes," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 12, pages 201-217, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. James Adams & Samuel Merrill, 2013. "Policy-seeking candidates who value the valence attributes of the winner," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 139-161, April.
    9. Aragones, Enriqueta & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2003. "Spatial Competition Between Two Candidates of Different Quality: The Effects of Candidate Ideology and Private Information," Working Papers 1169, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    10. Dimitrios Xefteris, 2018. "Candidate valence in a spatial model with entry," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 341-359, September.
    11. Raphaël Soubeyran, 2009. "Does a Disadvantaged Candidate Choose an Extremist Position?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 93-94, pages 301-326.
    12. Gersbach, Hans & Tejada, Oriol, 2018. "A Reform Dilemma in polarized democracies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 148-158.
    13. Dimitrios Xefteris, 2014. "Mixed equilibriums in a three-candidate spatial model with candidate valence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 101-120, January.
    14. Arianna Degan, 2003. "A Dynamic Model of Voting," PIER Working Paper Archive 04-015, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 May 2004.
    15. Pascal Gautier & Raphael Soubeyran, 2005. "Political Cycles : The Opposition Advantage," Working Papers 2005.129, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    16. Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2013. "Equilibrium in a discrete Downsian model given a non-minimal valence advantage and linear loss functions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 150-153.
    17. De Donder, Philippe & Gallego, Maria, 2017. "Electoral Competition and Party Positioning," TSE Working Papers 17-760, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    18. Cecilia Testa, 2004. "Party Polarization and Electoral Accountability," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 130, Econometric Society.
    19. Markus Müller, 2009. "Vote-Share Contracts and Learning-by-Doing," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 09/114, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    20. Gerard Padró i Miquel & Erik Snowberg, 2012. "The lesser evil: Executive accountability with partisan supporters," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(1), pages 19-45, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Spatial competition; mixed strategies; candidate quality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    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:upf:upfgen:502. 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 The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask the person in charge to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.upf.edu/ .

    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.