Signaling character in electoral competition

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kartik, Navin; McAfee, R. Preston
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California San Diego; California Institute of Technology
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.3.852
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 852-870
• 关键词: Incomplete information; MODEL; candidate; CONVERGENCE; equilibrium

摘要

We study a one-dimensional Hotelling-Downs model of electoral competition with the following innovation: a fraction of candidates have character and are exogenously committed to a campaign platform; this is unobservable to voters. Character is desirable, and a voter's utility is a convex combination of standard policy preferences and her assessment of a candidate's character. This structure induces a signaling game between strategic candidates and voters, since a policy platform affects voters' utilities not only directly, but also indirectly through inferences about a candidate's character. The model generates a number of predictions, starting with a failure of the median voter theorem.