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Electoral competition with uncertainty averse parties

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  • Bade, Sophie

Abstract

The non-existence of equilibria in models of electoral competition involving multiple issues is one of the more puzzling results in political economics. In this paper, we relax the standard assumption that parties act as expected utility maximizers. We show that equilibria often exist when parties with limited knowledge about the electorate are modeled as uncertainty-averse. What is more, these equilibria can be characterized as a straightforward generalization of the classical median voter result.

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  • Bade, Sophie, 2011. "Electoral competition with uncertainty averse parties," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 12-29, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:72:y:2011:i:1:p:12-29
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    Cited by:

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    3. Kishishita, Daiki, 2020. "(Not) delegating decisions to experts: The effect of uncertainty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    4. Lang, Matthias & Wambach, Achim, 2013. "The fog of fraud – Mitigating fraud by strategic ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 255-275.
    5. Charles F. Manski, 2013. "Status Quo Deference and Policy Choice under Ambiguity," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 169(1), pages 116-128, March.
    6. Rosenberg, Dinah & Vieille, Nicolas, 2019. "Zero-sum games with ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 238-249.
    7. Azrieli, Yaron & Teper, Roee, 2011. "Uncertainty aversion and equilibrium existence in games with incomplete information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 310-317.

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