 A model of pre-electoral coalition formationEuncheol Shin Games and Economic Behavior, 2019, vol. 118, issue C, 463-485 Abstract: In many countries, three or more candidates compete against one another in single-office elections. I present a model of three candidates competing for a single office in which two candidates can form a coalition prior to the election (a pre-electoral coalition). Since the candidates are both policy- and office-motivated, one candidate can incentivize the other candidate to withdraw his candidacy by choosing a joint policy platform. I examine how electoral environments such as election rules, ideological distance, and pre-election polls influence incentives to form pre-electoral coalitions. I find that pre-electoral coalitions are more likely to form (i) in plurality elections than in two-round runoff elections, (ii) as the threshold for first-round victory decreases in two-round runoff elections, (iii) as the two potential coalition partners' ideological distance increases, conditional on divided support, and (iv) as the fraction of office value which is transferable increases. Moreover, I analyze and compare voter welfare under plurality and the two-round runoff rules. Keywords: Opinion polls; Plurality rule; Pre-electoral coalition; Strategic voting; Two-round runoff rules (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:118:y:2019:i:c:p:463-485 DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2018.01.001 Access Statistics for this article Games and Economic Behavior is currently edited by E. Kalai More articles in Games and Economic Behavior from Elsevier |
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