Valence characteristics, costly policy and the median-crossing property: A diagrammatic exposition

Donald Wittman

Public Choice, 2005, vol. 124, issue 3, 365-382

Abstract: Voters value valence characteristics such as honesty and competence. In this paper, we consider the situation where candidates may have more than one valence characteristic of importance to the voters. At the same time we introduce a new concept “the median-crossing property" which differs from single-peakedness and is less restrictive than the single-crossing property. If indifference curves satisfy the median-crossing property, then voting is transitive and the majority's preference rankings coincide with those of the median voter; if the indifference curves violate the median-crossing property, then intransitivity may arise. The framework also allows us to consider elections with costly policy. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Date: 2005
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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-005-2053-3

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