IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/hastef/0528.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Downsian competition in the absence of a Condorcet winner

Author

Listed:
  • Roine, Jesper

    (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics)

Abstract

This paper studies studies two-party electoral competition in a setting where no policy is unbeatable. It is shown that if parties take turns in choosing platforms and observe each other's choises, altering one's platform so as to win is pointless since the other party never accepts an outcome where it is sure to loose. If there is any cost to changing platform, the prediction is that the game ends in the first period with the parties converging on whatever platform the incumbent chooses. If, however, there is a slight chance of a small mistake, the incumbent does best in choosing a local equilibrium platform. This suggest that local equilibrium policies can be the predicted outcome even if the voting process is not myopic in any way.

Suggested Citation

  • Roine, Jesper, 2003. "Downsian competition in the absence of a Condorcet winner," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 528, Stockholm School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0528
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://swopec.hhs.se/hastef/papers/hastef0528.pdf
    File Function: Complete Rendering
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1996. "Public Provision of Private Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 57-84, February.
    2. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    4. Baron, David P. & Ferejohn, John A., 1989. "Bargaining in Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1181-1206, December.
    5. Roger B. Myerson, 1977. "Refinements of the Nash Equilibrium Concept," Discussion Papers 295, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    6. Amoz Kats & Shmuel Nitzan, 1976. "Global and local equilibrium in majority voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 105-106, June.
    7. Kramer, Gerald H., 1977. "A dynamical model of political equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 310-334, December.
    8. Raquel Fernandez & Richard Rogerson, 1995. "On the Political Economy of Education Subsidies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(2), pages 249-262.
    9. Gordon Tullock, 1981. "Why so much stability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 189-204, January.
    10. Barzel, Yoram, 1973. "Private Schools and Public School Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(1), pages 174-186, Jan.-Feb..
    11. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E., 1996. "Ends against the middle: Determining public service provision when there are private alternatives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 297-325, November.
    12. Gerald H. Kramer & Alvin K. Klevorick, 1974. "Existence of a "Local" Co-operative Equilibrium in a Class of Voting Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(4), pages 539-547.
    13. Stiglitz, J. E., 1974. "The demand for education in public and private school systems," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 349-385, November.
    14. Baron, David P., 1996. "A Dynamic Theory of Collective Goods Programs," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(2), pages 316-330, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jesper Roine, 2006. "Downsian Competition When No Policy is Unbeatable," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 34(2), pages 273-284, August.
    2. Olovsson, Conny & Roine, Jesper, 2007. "On the Possibility of Political Change – Outcomes in Between Local and Global Equilibria," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 654, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 15 Mar 2007.
    3. Levy, Gilat, 2004. "Public education for the minority, private education for the majority," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3617, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Gilat Levy, 2005. "The Politics of Public Provision of Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1507-1534.
    5. Rainald Borck, 2007. "Voting, Inequality And Redistribution," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 90-109, February.
    6. David De La Croix & Matthias Doepke, 2009. "To Segregate or to Integrate: Education Politics and Democracy," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(2), pages 597-628.
    7. Kimura, Masako & Yasui, Daishin, 2009. "Public provision of private child goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 741-751, June.
    8. Hejer Lasram & Didier Laussel, 2019. "The determination of public tuition fees in a mixed education system: A majority voting model," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(6), pages 1056-1073, December.
    9. Anderberg, Dan, 2013. "Post-compulsory education: Participation and politics," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 134-150.
    10. Niklas Potrafke, 2006. "Parties Matter in Allocating Expenditures: Evidence from Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 652, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Roy, Souvik & Sadhukhan, Soumyarup, 2021. "A unified characterization of the randomized strategy-proof rules," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    12. John Hall & Ian Preston, 1998. "Public and private choice in UK health insurance," IFS Working Papers W98/19, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    13. Dotti, Valerio, 2019. "The political economy of public education," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 35-52.
    14. Jean-François JACQUES & Florence ARESTOFF, 2008. "Minimum Educational Standard to Complement Taxation in the Presence of Hidden Activities," EcoMod2008 23800054, EcoMod.
    15. Dan Anderberg, 2007. "Inefficient households and the mix of government spending," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 127-140, April.
    16. Daniel Diermeier & Pohan Fong, 2011. "Bargaining over the budget," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 36(3), pages 565-589, April.
    17. Dan Anderberg & Alessandro Balestrino, 2008. "The Political Economy of Post-Compulsory Education Policy with Endogenous Credit Constraints," CESifo Working Paper Series 2304, CESifo.
    18. John Duggan & Tasos Kalandrakis, 2011. "A Newton collocation method for solving dynamic bargaining games," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 36(3), pages 611-650, April.
    19. Kalandrakis, Anastassios, 2004. "A three-player dynamic majoritarian bargaining game," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 294-322, June.
    20. Zanola, Roberto, 2000. "Public goods versus publicly provided private goods in a two-class economy," POLIS Working Papers 12, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voting; Downsian competition; Local equilibrium; Spatial trembles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0528. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Helena Lundin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erhhsse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.