Partisan politics and election failure with ignorant voters

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gul, Faruk; Pesendorfer, Wolfgang
• 署名单位: Princeton University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2008.04.005
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 146-174
• 关键词: electoral competition; information aggregation; Voter ignorance

摘要

We analyze candidate competition when some voters do not observe a candidate's policy choice. Voters have a personality preference when both candidates offer the same policy. In equilibrium, the candidate with a personality advantage may get elected with a partisan policy even though his opponent's policy is preferred by all voters. The departure from the Downsian prediction is most pronounced when candidates have a weak policy preference and care mostly about winning the election. In that case, uninformed voters choose the candidate with the preferred personality even if electing this candidate implies a lower payoff on average. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.