Modelling the Effect of Campaign Advertising on US Presidential Elections

Maria Gallego and Norman Schofield ()
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Norman Schofield: Washington University in St. Louis

A chapter in The Political Economy of Social Choices, 2016, pp 123-152 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract We provide a stochastic electoral model of the US Presidential election. The availability of smart phone and social media coupled with large data set on voters’ personal characteristics and information has given candidates the ability to send messages directly to voters. In our model, candidates directly communicate with voters. Prior to the election candidates announce their policies and advertising campaigns. Voters care about candidates’ policies relative to their ideal policy and about the messages candidates sent relative to their ideal message frequency, called the campaign tolerance level. The electoral mean is a strick (weak) local Nash equilibrium (LNE) of the election if the expected vote shares of all candidates are greater than the sufficient (necessary) pivotal vote shares. The sufficient pivotal vote share rises when voters give greater weight to the policy or advertising dimensions. The necessary pivotal vote share may increase or decrease in the importance votes give to the policy or advertising dimensions. If the expected vote share of at least one candidate is lower than the necessary pivotal vote share, then the electoral mean is not a LNE of the election.

Keywords: Advertising campaign; Local Nash equilibrium; Pivotal probabilities; Pivotal vote shares; Policies; Stochastic votes; Valences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-40118-8_6

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