Elections and Strategic Positioning Games

Frank Page and Myrna Wooders

Working Papers from University of Toronto, Department of Economics

Abstract: We formalize the interplay between expected voting behavior and stragetic positioning behavior of candidates as a common agency problem in which the candidates (i.e., the principals) compete for voters (i.e., agents) via the issues they choose and the positions they take. A political situation is defined as a feasible combination of candidate positions and expected political payoffs to the candidates. Taking this approach, we are led naturally to a particular formalization of the candidates positioning game, called a political situation game. Within the context of this game, we define the notion of farsighted stability (introduced in an abstract setting by Chwe (1994)) and apply Chwe s result to obtain existence of farsightedly stable outcomes. We compute the farsightedly stable sets for several examples of political situations games, with outcomes that conform to real-world observations.

JEL-codes: C7 D7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 1999-10-11
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Related works:
Journal Article: Elections and strategic positioning games (2003)
Working Paper: Elections and Strategic Positioning Games (2002)
Working Paper: ELECTIONS AND STRATEGIC POSITIONING GAMES (1999)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tor:tecipa:mwooders-00-04

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