Most campaigns do not revolve around policy commitments; instead, we think of campaigns as contests in which candidates spend time, energy and money to win. This paper develops models of electoral competition in which candidates select levels of effort. The analysis offers insights into which possible causes of the incumbency advantage are consistent with the empirical record. Marginal asymmetries in costs or technology can explain the advantage; asymmetries in voter preferences cannot. The analysis also speaks to the consequences of campaign finance reform. Reforms can be interpreted as shocks to the cost of influencing voter's perceptions; limits generally increase the likelihood that advantaged incumbents win, and even limits that target incumbents do not actually improve the welfare of disadvantaged challengers. Alternativel,y caps on the amount of effort can either increase or decrease the probability that the disadvantaged candidate wins. Either type of reform lowers voter welfare. Finally, while extant models with fixed valence typically do not generate Fiorina's long-studied marginality hypothesis (that stronger candidates would locate at less centrist polices) extensions to the model with endogenous policy platforms and effort offer more refined and conditional versions of the hypothesis.
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.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Princeton University, Research Program in Political Economy in its series Papers with number
06-21-2007.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
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.: