IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v72y2011i1p12-29.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electoral competition with uncertainty averse parties

Author

Listed:
  • Bade, Sophie

Abstract

The non-existence of equilibria in models of electoral competition involving multiple issues is one of the more puzzling results in political economics. In this paper, we relax the standard assumption that parties act as expected utility maximizers. We show that equilibria often exist when parties with limited knowledge about the electorate are modeled as uncertainty-averse. What is more, these equilibria can be characterized as a straightforward generalization of the classical median voter result.

Suggested Citation

  • Bade, Sophie, 2011. "Electoral competition with uncertainty averse parties," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 12-29, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:72:y:2011:i:1:p:12-29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899-8256(10)00141-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ordeshook,Peter C., 1986. "Game Theory and Political Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521315937.
    2. Simon, Leo K & Zame, William R, 1990. "Discontinuous Games and Endogenous Sharing Rules," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 861-872, July.
    3. John E. Roemer, 1999. "The Democratic Political Economy of Progressive Income Taxation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 1-20, January.
    4. Antoine Billot & Alain Chateauneuf & Itzhak Gilboa & Jean-Marc Tallon, 2000. "Sharing Beliefs: Between Agreeing and Disagreeing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(3), pages 685-694, May.
    5. Marcus Berliant & Hideo Konishi, 2005. "Salience: Agenda choices by competing candidates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 129-149, July.
    6. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114.
    7. Simon Hix & Abdul Noury & Gérard Roland, 2006. "Dimensions of Politics in the European Parliament," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(2), pages 494-520, April.
    8. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    9. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    10. Paolo Ghirardato & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Marciano Siniscalchi, 2003. "A Subjective Spin on Roulette Wheels," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1897-1908, November.
    11. Sujoy Mukerji & Jean-Marc Tallon & EUREQua & CNRS - Universite Paris I., 2003. "An overview of economic applications of David Schmeidler`s models of decision making under uncertainty," Economics Series Working Papers 165, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Camerer, Colin & Weber, Martin, 1992. "Recent Developments in Modeling Preferences: Uncertainty and Ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 325-370, October.
    13. Levy, Gilat, 2004. "A model of political parties," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 250-277, April.
    14. Rae, Douglas & Taylor, Michael, 1971. "Decision Rules and Policy Outcomes," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 71-90, January.
    15. Duggan, John, 2007. "Equilibrium existence for zero-sum games and spatial models of elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 52-74, July.
    16. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2006. "Ambiguity Aversion, Robustness, and the Variational Representation of Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1447-1498, November.
    17. Caplin, Andrew S & Nalebuff, Barry J, 1988. "On 64%-Majority Rule," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 787-814, July.
    18. Laver, Michael & Benoit, Kenneth & Garry, John, 2003. "Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(2), pages 311-331, May.
    19. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-587, May.
    20. McKelvey, Richard D, 1979. "General Conditions for Global Intransitivities in Formal Voting Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1085-1112, September.
    21. Grandmont, Jean-Michel, 1978. "Intermediate Preferences and the Majority Rule," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(2), pages 317-330, March.
    22. Barbera Salvador & Gul Faruk & Stacchetti Ennio, 1993. "Generalized Median Voter Schemes and Committees," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 262-289, December.
    23. Itzhak Gilboa, 2004. "Uncertainty in Economic Theory," Post-Print hal-00756317, HAL.
    24. Davis, Otto A & DeGroot, Morris H & Hinich, Melvin J, 1972. "Social Preference Orderings and Majority Rule," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 40(1), pages 147-157, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cosmin L. Ilut & Martin Schneider, 2022. "Modeling Uncertainty as Ambiguity: a Review," NBER Working Papers 29915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. ,, 2016. "Condorcet meets Ellsberg," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.
    3. Kishishita, Daiki, 2020. "(Not) delegating decisions to experts: The effect of uncertainty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    4. Lang, Matthias & Wambach, Achim, 2013. "The fog of fraud – Mitigating fraud by strategic ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 255-275.
    5. Charles F. Manski, 2013. "Status Quo Deference and Policy Choice under Ambiguity," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 169(1), pages 116-128, March.
    6. Rosenberg, Dinah & Vieille, Nicolas, 2019. "Zero-sum games with ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 238-249.
    7. Azrieli, Yaron & Teper, Roee, 2011. "Uncertainty aversion and equilibrium existence in games with incomplete information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 310-317.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sophie Bade, 2016. "Divergent platforms," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 80(4), pages 561-580, April.
    2. Bade, Sophie, 2011. "Ambiguous act equilibria," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 246-260, March.
    3. Sophie Bade, 2011. "Divergent Platforms," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_25, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    4. Massimo Guidolin & Francesca Rinaldi, 2013. "Ambiguity in asset pricing and portfolio choice: a review of the literature," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(2), pages 183-217, February.
    5. Eisei Ohtaki & Hiroyuki Ozaki, 2015. "Monetary equilibria and Knightian uncertainty," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 59(3), pages 435-459, August.
    6. Dotti, Valerio, 2014. "Generalized Comparative Statics for Political Economy Models," MPRA Paper 60711, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Tovey, Craig A., 2010. "The instability of instability of centered distributions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 53-73, January.
    8. Olivier L’Haridon & Lætitia Placido, 2010. "Betting on Machina’s reflection example: an experiment on ambiguity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 69(3), pages 375-393, September.
    9. Lo, Kin Chung, 2009. "Correlated Nash equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 722-743, March.
    10. Beauchêne, Dorian & Li, Jian & Li, Ming, 2019. "Ambiguous persuasion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 312-365.
    11. Mark Dean & Pietro Ortoleva, 2012. "Allais, Ellsberg, and Preferences for Hedging," Working Papers 2012-2, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    12. Giuseppe Attanasi & Aldo Montesano, 2012. "The price for information about probabilities and its relation with risk and ambiguity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 125-160, July.
    13. Azrieli, Yaron & Teper, Roee, 2011. "Uncertainty aversion and equilibrium existence in games with incomplete information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 310-317.
    14. Christian Kellner, 2017. "The principal-agent problem with smooth ambiguity," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 21(2), pages 83-119, June.
    15. Rigotti, Luca & Shannon, Chris, 2012. "Sharing risk and ambiguity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 2028-2039.
    16. Lo, Kin Chung, 2007. "Sharing beliefs about actions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 123-133, March.
    17. Rosenberg, Dinah & Vieille, Nicolas, 2019. "Zero-sum games with ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 238-249.
    18. Dean, Mark & Ortoleva, Pietro, 2017. "Allais, Ellsberg, and preferences for hedging," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    19. Karni, Edi & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2015. "Ambiguity and Nonexpected Utility," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    20. Adam Dominiak & Jean-Philippe Lefort, 2021. "Ambiguity and Probabilistic Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 4310-4326, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:72:y:2011:i:1:p:12-29. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.