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Finding the majority-rule equilibrium under lexicographic comparison of candidates

Author

Listed:
  • Susan O. Griffin

    (Department of Economics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA)

  • Joyendu Bhadury

    (Faculty of Administration, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, N.B., Canada E3B5A3)

  • Lakshmi S. Narasimhan

    (OHMS Consulting, Atlanta, GA, USA)

  • (*), Paul M. Griffin

    (School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0205, USA)

Abstract

This paper considers the well studied problem of the existence of an undominated point, under the assumption of lexicographic preferences of voters, as espoused by Taylor in [24]. We extend Taylor's model to situations were we allow for (i) voters to have different ranings of the issues in n-dimensional issue space and (ii) a candidate to be disregarded by a voter if his stand on any one or more of the issues involved in the election is perceived to be too extreme by the voter and (iii) combinations of (i) and (ii). We extend the results of Taylor by demonstrating the non-existence of an equilibrium point in these models in general and then showing that under special circumstances, specialized variants of the "median" point(s) represent equilibrium or undominated points in these models too. Thus a model of voting behavior results that is closer approximation of reality in that historically incumbents tend to win. The primary conclusion of the paper is to suggest that incumbents tend to have an advantage when the election process is characterized by a large presence of special interests or as information becomes more expensive to acquire.

Suggested Citation

  • Susan O. Griffin & Joyendu Bhadury & Lakshmi S. Narasimhan & (*), Paul M. Griffin, 1998. "Finding the majority-rule equilibrium under lexicographic comparison of candidates," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 15(4), pages 489-508.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:15:y:1998:i:4:p:489-508
    Note: Received: 13 February 1996 / Accepted: 27 March 1997
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    Cited by:

    1. Menezes, Mozart B.C. & da Silveira, Giovani J.C. & Drezner, Zvi, 2016. "Democratic elections and centralized decisions: Condorcet and Approval Voting compared with Median and Coverage locations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 253(1), pages 195-203.
    2. David Soberman & Loïc Sadoulet, 2007. "Campaign Spending Limits and Political Advertising," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(10), pages 1521-1532, October.
    3. Brett Gordon & Mitchell Lovett & Ron Shachar & Kevin Arceneaux & Sridhar Moorthy & Michael Peress & Akshay Rao & Subrata Sen & David Soberman & Oleg Urminsky, 2012. "Marketing and politics: Models, behavior, and policy implications," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 391-403, June.

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