Mutual Party Extremism

Ivo Welch

No 34967, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: It is well known that candidates may have to stake out more partisan positions to win their primaries. These then also determine their success in the general election. The equilibrium consequences of primaries are less well understood. There is a robust externality — the primary trap — that can sustain multiple equilibria (along a band). Candidate extremism (moderation) on one side facilitates candidate extremism (moderation) on the other. Electorate polarization and turnout are less important than other candidates’ choices. The paper also discusses how other considerations can alter the set of equilibria.

JEL-codes: D71 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic and nep-pol
Note: POL
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w34967.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34967

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w34967
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().