In most major democracies there are very fewparties compared to the number of possible policy positions held by voters. We provide an efficiency rationale for why it might be appropriate to limit the proliferation of parties. In our model, the larger the number of parties, the greater the inefficiency of the outcome of electoral competition. The reason is that, when the number of parties increases, electoral incentives push each party to focus its electoral promises on a narrower constituency, and then special interest policies replace more efficient policies that have diffuse benefits. The analysis provides a possible explanation for the existence of institutional features that limit the extent of electoral competition: thresholds of exclusion, runoff electoral systems, and majoritarian two-party political systems. (JEL: D82, L15) Copyright (c) 2005 by the European Economic Association.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 3 (2005) Issue (Month): 6 (December) Pages: 1318-1348 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)