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Endogenous party platforms: ‘stochastic’ membership

Author

Listed:
  • Andrei M. Gomberg

    (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México)

  • Francisco Marhuenda

    (Universidad Carlos III)

  • Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín

    (Universidad Carlos III)

Abstract

We propose a model of endogenous party platforms with stochastic membership. The parties’ proposals depend on their membership, while the membership depends both on the proposals of the parties and on the unobserved idiosyncratic preferences of citizens over parties. An equilibrium of the model obtains when the members of each party prefer the proposal of the party to which they belong to, rather than the proposal of the other party. We prove the existence of such an equilibrium and study its qualitative properties. For the cases in which parties use either the average or the median to aggregate the preferences of their members, we show that if the unobserved idiosyncratic characteristics of the parties are similar, then parties make different proposals in the stable equilibria. Conversely, we argue that if parties differ substantially in their unobserved idiosyncratic characteristics, then the unique equilibrium is convergent.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrei M. Gomberg & Francisco Marhuenda & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín, 2016. "Endogenous party platforms: ‘stochastic’ membership," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 62(4), pages 839-866, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:62:y:2016:i:4:d:10.1007_s00199-015-0936-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-015-0936-1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    14. Andrei Gomberg & Francisco Marhuenda & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín, 2004. "A model of endogenous political party platforms," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 24(2), pages 373-394, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. John Roemer, 2012. "The political economy of income taxation under asymmetric information: the two-type case," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 181-199, March.
    2. Agustin Casas, 2020. "Ideological extremism and primaries," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(3), pages 829-860, April.
    3. Bernard Grofman & Orestis Troumpounis & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2016. "Electoral competition with primaries and quality asymmetries," Working Papers 135286117, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political parties; Stochastic membership; Divergent equilibria;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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