Candidate quality in a Downsian Model with a Continuous Policy Space

Enriqueta Aragones and Dimitrios Xefteris

UFAE and IAE Working Papers from Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC)

Abstract: This paper characterizes a mixed strategy Nash equilibrium in a one-dimensional Downsian model of two-candidate elections with a continuous policy space, where candidates are office motivated and one candidate enjoys a non- policy advantage over the other candidate. We assume that voters have quadratic preferences over policies and that their ideal points are drawn from a uniform distribution over the unit interval. In our equilibrium the advantaged candidate chooses the expected median voter with probability one and the disadvantaged candidate uses a mixed strategy that is symmetric around it. We show that this equilibrium exists if the number of voters is large enough relative to the size of the advantage.

Keywords: spatial competition; mixed strategies; candidate quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28
Date: 2011-01-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
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Related works:
Journal Article: Candidate quality in a Downsian model with a continuous policy space (2012)
Working Paper: Candidate quality in a Downsian Model with a Continuous Policy Space
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aub:autbar:859.11

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