When Winning is the Only Thing: Pure Strategy Nash Equilibria in a Three-Candidate Spatial Voting Model

Richard Chisik and Robert Lemke (lemke@lakeforest.edu)

No 21, Working Papers from Toronto Metropolitan University, Department of Economics

Abstract: It is well-known that there are no pure strategy Nash equilibria (PSNE) in the standard three-candidate spatial voting model when candidates maximize their share of the vote. When all that matters to the candidates is winning the election, however, we show that PSNE do exist. We provide a complete characterization of such equilibria and then extend our results to elections with an arbitrary number of candidates. Finally, when two candidates face the potential entrant of a third, we show that PSNE no longer exist, however, they do exist when the number of existing candidates is at least three.

Keywords: Voting; spatial equilibrium; location models; entry. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 D0 H8 R1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2010-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-gth and nep-pol
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https://www.arts.ryerson.ca/economics/repec/pdfs/wp021.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: When winning is the only thing: pure strategy Nash equilibria in a three-candidate spatial voting model (2006)
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