Electoral competition with uncertainty averse parties

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Abstract

The nonexistence of equilibria in models of electoral competition involving multiple issues is one of the more puzzling results in political economics. In this paper, we relax the standard assumption that parties act as expected utility maximizers. We show that equilibria often exist when parties with limited knowledge about the electorate are modeled as uncertainty-averse. What is more, these equilibria can be characterized as a straightforward generalization of the classical median voter result.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)12-29
Number of pages18
JournalGames and Economic Behavior
Volume72
Issue number1
Early online date22 Sept 2010
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2011

Keywords

  • Uncertainty Aversion, Multiple Priors, Median Voter, Electoral Com- petition over many Issues.

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