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Electoral Poaching and Party Identification

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Author Info
Kovenock, Dan
Robertson, Brian

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Abstract

This paper studies electoral competition in a model of redistributive politics with deterministic voting and heterogeneous voter loyalties to political parties. We construct a natural measure of “party strength” based on the sizes and intensities of a party’s loyal voter segments and demonstrate how party behavior varies with the two parties’ strengths. In equilibrium, parties target or “poach” a strict subset of the opposition party’s loyal voters: offering those voters a high expected transfer, while “freezing out” the remainder with a zero transfer. The size of the subset of opposition voters frozen out and consequently, the level of inequality in utilities generated by a party’s equilibrium redistribution schedule is increasing in the opposition party’s strength. We also construct a measure of “political polarization” that is increasing in the sum and symmetry of the parties’ strengths, and find that the expected ex-post inequality in utilities of the implemented policy is increasing in the political polarization.

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Paper provided by Purdue University, Department of Economics in its series Purdue University Economics Working Papers with number 1178.

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Length: 36 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2005
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Handle: RePEc:pur:prukra:1178

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  1. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2007. "Inefficient Redistribution and Inefficient Redistributive Politics," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1206, Purdue University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Crutzen, Benoît SY & Sahuguet, Nicolas, 2006. "Redistributive Politics with Distortionary Taxation," CEPR Discussion Papers 5975, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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