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The Politics of Ambiguity

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Author Info
Alesina, Alberto
Cukierman, Alex

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Abstract

Politicians face a trade-off between the policies that maximize their chances of reelection and their most preferred policies (or the policies most preferred by the constituency which they represent). This paper analyzes this trade-off in a dynamic electoral model in which the voters are not fully informed about the preferences of the incumbent. First, the authors show that the incumbent follows a policy that is intermediate between the other party's ideal policy and his own ideal policy. Second, the authors show that the incumbent often has an incentive to choose procedures that make it difficult for voters to pinpoint his preferences with absolute precision. Thus, politicians may prefer to be "ambiguous." Copyright 1990, the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by MIT Press in its journal Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Volume (Year): 105 (1990)
Issue (Month): 4 (November)
Pages: 829-50
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Handle: RePEc:tpr:qjecon:v:105:y:1990:i:4:p:829-50

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Web page: http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/

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References listed on IDEAS
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.:
  1. Wittman, Donald, 1977. "Candidates with policy preferences: A dynamic model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 180-189, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Cukierman, Alex & Meltzer, Allan H, 1986. "A Positive Theory of Discretionary Policy, the Cost of Democratic Government and the Benefits of a Constitution," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(3), pages 367-88, July.
  3. Kenneth Rogoff, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," NBER Working Papers 2428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Hinich, Melvin J., 1977. "Equilibrium in spatial voting: The median voter result is an artifact," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 208-219, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Alesina, Alberto, 1987. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 651-78, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Coughlin, Peter & Nitzan, Shmuel, 1981. "Directional and local electoral equilibria with probabilistic voting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 226-239, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Cukierman, Alex, 1991. " Asymmetric Information and the Electoral Momentum of Public Opinion Polls," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 181-213, May.
  8. McKelvey, Richard D, 1975. "Policy Related Voting and Electoral Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(5-6), pages 815-43, Sept.-Nov. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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