Political Competition with Endogenous Party Formation and Citizen Activists

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hansen, Emanuel
• 署名单位: University of Cologne
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20200041
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 35-75
• 关键词: model; platforms

摘要

This paper studies the effects of endogenous party formation on politi-cal platforms. It develops a model in which parties allow like-minded citizens to, first, share the cost of running in a public election and, second, coordinate on a policy platform. The paper characterizes the set of political equilibria with two competing parties and with one uncontested party. In two-party equilibria, the distance between both platforms is always positive but limited, in contrast to the median voter model and the citizen candidate model. In one-party equilib-ria, the median voter can be worse off than in all equilibria with two competing parties. (JEL D71, D72)