Electoral Competition When Some Candidates Lie and Others Pander

Haifeng Huang
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Haifeng Huang: University of California at Merced, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, PO Box 2039, Merced, CA95344, USA, hhuang24@ucmerced.edu, hfhuang@princeton.edu

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2010, vol. 22, issue 3, 333-358

Abstract: In this paper we analyze a two-candidate electoral competition in which a candidate can either lie about his private policy preference in order to get elected, or pander to post-election external influences in choosing a policy to implement. Both the pre-election announcement and post-election implementation are a candidate’s strategic choices. We show that, in equilibrium, different types of candidates can cluster at different points around the median voter position, as long as the pandering type and the lying type coexist in the candidate pool. The pooling of all types of candidates at the median voter position is also an equilibrium. Thus, despite pressure towards the median (as all candidates want to win the election), both convergence and divergence in candidate announcements are normal outcomes of electoral competition.

Keywords: Electoral competition; lying; pandering; divergence; signaling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:22:y:2010:i:3:p:333-358

DOI: 10.1177/0951629810365151

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