Elections, Information, and State-Dependent Candidate Quality

Thomas Jensen ()

No 13-03, Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: The quality of political candidates often depends on the current state of the world, for example because their personal characteristics are more valuable in some situations than in others. We explore the implications of state-dependent candidate quality in a model of electoral competition where voters are uncertain about the state. Candidates are fully informed and completely office-motivated. With a reasonable restriction on voters' ?beliefs, an equilibrium where candidates' ?positions reveal the true state does not exist. Non-revealing equilibria always exist. Some main findings are that canddates' ?positions can diverge more in equilibrium when they differ more in state-dependent quality and when the electorate is less well informed.

Keywords: Electoral competition; Candidate quality; Uncertainty; Information; Polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2013-02-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-cta and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1303

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