Electoral Competition with Uncertainty Averse Parties

37 Pages Posted: 29 May 2010 Last revised: 5 Sep 2010

See all articles by Sophie Bade

Sophie Bade

Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Date Written: May 1, 2010

Abstract

The nonexistence of equilibria in models of electoral competition involving multiple issues is one of the more puzzling results in political economics. In this paper, we relax the standard assumption that parties act as expected utility maximizers. We show that equilibria often exist when parties with limited knowledge about the electorate are modeled as uncertainty-averse. What is more, these equilibria can be characterized as a straightforward generalization of the classical median voter result.

Keywords: Uncertainty Aversion, Multiple Priors, Median Voter, Electoral Competition over many Issues

JEL Classification: D81, D72

Suggested Citation

Bade, Sophie, Electoral Competition with Uncertainty Averse Parties (May 1, 2010). MPI Collective Goods Preprint No. 2010/22, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1617195 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1617195

Sophie Bade (Contact Author)

Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods ( email )

Kurt-Schumacher-Str. 10
D-53113 Bonn, 53113
Germany

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