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Why Politicians Favor Red-Heads - A Theory of Tactical Horizontal Redistribution

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Author Info
Blomquist, S.
Christiansen, V.
Abstract

This paper studies a very pure form of "vote purchasing". We consider whether it may be in the interest of a party to discriminate between groups th at, possibly except for size, are identical in all welfare relevant aspec ts, i.e. the groups are assumed to have the same income, needs, etc. To emphasise this aspect we label the groups brown-heads and redheads. The interpretation is that they differ only in some characteristic that is entirely irrelevant from a welfare perspective. There are no systematic differences between people with the same income. Taking two samples of people from an income class their political support will be identically distributed. We will show that even with these uniformity assumptions there can be strong incentives for political parties to undertake vote purchasing by favouring one of the identical groups at the expense of the other.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Uppsala - Working Paper Series in its series Papers with number 2000:10.

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Length: 27 pages
Date of creation: 2000
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:fth:uppaal:2000:10

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Related research
Keywords: VOTING ; POLITICAL ECONOMY;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Avinash Dixit & John Londregan, 1998. "Ideology, Tactics, And Efficiency In Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 113(2), pages 497-529, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Dixit, Avinash & Londregan, John, 1998. "Fiscal federalism and redistributive politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 153-180, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Blomquist, Soren & Christiansen, Vidar, 1999. "The political economy of publicly provided private goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 31-54, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Dixit, Avinash K & Londregan, John, 1994. "Redistributive Politics and Economic Efficiency," CEPR Discussion Papers 1056, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Alesina, Alberto, 1988. "Credibility and Policy Convergence in a Two-Party System with Rational Voters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 796-805, September.
  6. Eva Johansson, 2003. "Tactical Redistribution Between Regions When Parties and Voters Care About Ideology," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 5(1), pages 95-120, 01. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114, February.
    Other versions:
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