Candidate quality in a Downsian model with a continuous policy space

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Aragones, Enriqueta; Xefteris, Dimitrios
• 署名单位: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC); CSIC - Institut d'Analisi Economica (IAE); University of Cyprus
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2011.12.008
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 464-480
• 关键词: spatial competition; Mixed strategies; Candidate quality

摘要

This paper characterizes a unique mixed strategy Nash equilibrium in a one-dimensional Downsian model of two-candidate elections with a continuous policy space, where candidates are office motivated and one candidate enjoys a non-policy advantage over the other candidate. We show that if voters' utility functions are concave and the median voter ideal point is drawn from a unimodal distribution, there is a mixed strategy Nash equilibrium where the advantaged candidate chooses the ideal point of the expected median voter with probability one and the disadvantaged candidate uses a mixed strategy that is symmetric around it. Existence conditions require the variance of the distribution to be small enough relative to the size of the advantage. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.