in electoral competition: A case for multiple votes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Xefteris, Dimitrios
• 署名单位: University of Cyprus
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2015.11.003
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 76-102
• 关键词: Hotelling-Downs model; equilibrium; Multiple votes

摘要

It is well known that the Hotelling-Downs model generically fails to admit an equilibrium when voting takes place under the plurality rule (Osborne, 1993). This paper studies the Hotelling-Downs model considering that each voter is allowed to vote for up to k candidates and demonstrates that an equilibrium exists for a non-degenerate class of distributions of voters' ideal policies - which includes all log-concave distributions - if and only if k >= 2. That is, the plurality rule (k = 1) is shown to be the unique k-vote rule which generically precludes stability in electoral competition. Regarding the features of k-vote rules' equilibria, first, we show that there is no convergent equilibrium and, then, we fully characterize all divergent equilibria. We study comprehensively the simplest kind of divergent equilibria (two-location ones) and we argue that, apart from existing for quite a general class of distributions when k >= 2, they have further attractive properties among others, they are robust to free-entry and to candidates' being uncertain about voters' preferences. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.