Voters' private valuation of candidates' quality

Enriqueta Aragonès and Dimitrios Xefteris

Journal of Public Economics, 2017, vol. 156, issue C, 121-130

Abstract: Different voters might have different valuations of candidates' qualitative features. We argue that this intuitive fact acts as a strong stabilizing force in electoral competition dynamics when candidates are office motivated (pure strategy equilibria may exist, unlike when all voters favor the same candidate). Perhaps more importantly, it affects candidates' platform moderation incentives in a rather intriguing manner. When voters are evenly split, in terms of their candidates' quality valuations, then both candidates have incentives to locate sufficiently near - but not necessarily exactly at - the center of the policy space. However, as the number of voters who favor the same candidate rises, (maximum) equilibrium differentiation follows a non-trivial U-shaped pattern. It is first decreasing and then increasing in the fraction of voters who prefer the more popular candidate.

Keywords: Downsian model; Private information; Advantaged candidate; Candidate quality; Platform differentiation; Polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Voters' Private Valuation of Candidates' Quality (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:156:y:2017:i:c:p:121-130

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.09.007

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