Political Polarization

Avinash Dixit and Jörgen Weibull

No 655, SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance from Stockholm School of Economics

Abstract: Failures of government policies often provoke opposite reactions from citizens; some call for a reversal of the policy while others favor its continuation in stronger form. We offer an explanation of such polarization, based on a natural bimodality of preferences in political and economic contexts, and consistent with Bayesian rationality.

Keywords: polarization; voting; information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D74 D81 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2006-08-22, Revised 2007-04-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:hastef:0655

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