Electoral Competition with Entry

Steven Callander ()

No 1083, Working Papers from California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Abstract: By extending the established theoretical models of electoral competition with entry (eg. Palfrey (1984)) to incorporate simultaneous competition for multiple districts I produce a unique two party equilibrium under plurality rule with non-centrist party platforms. This equilibrium also precludes entry of additional parties. This result is used to provide a domain for which Duverger's Law could be expected to apply. I also present new results under the run-off rule for both the single district and multiple district frameworks. In the single district case I find that for the run-off rule the model is more consistent with empirical observation than it is for the plurality rule, but that this performance is reversed when we consider multiple districts. The paper also sheds some light on how the different levels of elections in the U.S. and other systems relate to each other.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ind, nep-mic, nep-pbe and nep-pol
Date: 1999-12
View list of references

Published:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hss.caltech.edu/SSPapers/wp1083.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:clt:sswopa:1083

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Working Paper Assistant, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 228-77, Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Address: Working Paper Assistant, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 228-77, Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125
Series data maintained by Victoria Mason ().