IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v148y2018icp121-134.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electoral competition with third party entry in the lab

Author

Listed:
  • Tsakas, Nikolas
  • Xefteris, Dimitrios

Abstract

Electoral competition between two vote-share maximizing candidates in the context of the unidimensional spatial model leads to platform convergence: both candidates end up proposing the ideal policy of the median voter (Downs, 1957). Palfrey (1984) famously argued that if third candidate entry is expected after the two main candidates choose their platforms, the unique equilibrium is such that the two main candidates locate substantially far from each other. By conducting a laboratory experiment, we put this popular idea to test, for the first time. We allow entry to take place with four different probabilities and find that, indeed, the degree of polarization of the two main candidates’ platforms increases as third candidate entry becomes more likely to occur, providing strong evidence in support of Palfrey (1984)’s formal results and underlying intuition.

Suggested Citation

  • Tsakas, Nikolas & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2018. "Electoral competition with third party entry in the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 121-134.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:148:y:2018:i:c:p:121-134
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.02.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726811830043X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Battaglini & Rebecca B. Morton & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2010. "The Swing Voter's Curse in the Laboratory," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 61-89.
    2. Osborne Martin J., 1993. "Candidate Positioning and Entry in a Political Competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 133-151, January.
    3. B. Curtis Eaton & Richard G. Lipsey, 1975. "The Principle of Minimum Differentiation Reconsidered: Some New Developments in the Theory of Spatial Competition," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 27-49.
    4. repec:cup:apsrev:v:77:y:1983:i:01:p:142-157_24 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Stahl Dale O. & Wilson Paul W., 1995. "On Players' Models of Other Players: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 218-254, July.
    6. Bouton, Laurent & Castanheira, Micael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2016. "Divided majority and information aggregation: Theory and experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 114-128.
    7. Arnaud Dellis & Mandar Oak, 2016. "Multiple votes, multiple candidacies and polarization," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 1-38, January.
    8. Alexei, Zakharov & Shapoval, Alexander & Weber, Shlomo, 2016. "Valence influence in electoral competition with rank objectives," CEPR Discussion Papers 11527, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114.
    10. Steffen Huck & Wieland M¸ller, 2002. "The East End, the West End, and King's Cross: on Clustering in the Four-Player Hotelling Game," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(2), pages 231-240, April.
    11. Brusco, Sandro & Dziubiński, Marcin & Roy, Jaideep, 2012. "The Hotelling–Downs model with runoff voting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 447-469.
    12. Steffen Huck & Wieland M¸ller, 2002. "The East End, the West End, and King's Cross: on Clustering in the Four-Player Hotelling Game," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(2), pages 231-240, April.
    13. Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2016. "Stability in electoral competition: A case for multiple votes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 76-102.
    14. Levine, David K. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2007. "The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(01), pages 143-158, February.
    15. Steven Callander, 2005. "Electoral Competition in Heterogeneous Districts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 1116-1145, October.
    16. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    17. Dellis, Arnaud, 2009. "Would letting people vote for multiple candidates yield policy moderation?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 772-801, March.
    18. Simon Loertscher & Gerd Muehlheusser, 2011. "Sequential location games," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(4), pages 639-663, December.
    19. Alesina, Alberto & Rosenthal, Howard, 2000. "Polarized platforms and moderate policies with checks and balances," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 1-20, January.
    20. Shaked, A, 1982. "Existence and Computation of Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibrium for 3-Firms Location Problem," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1-2), pages 93-96, September.
    21. Ayala Arad & Ariel Rubinstein, 2012. "The 11-20 Money Request Game: A Level-k Reasoning Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3561-3573, December.
    22. Collins, Richard & Sherstyuk, Katerina, 2000. "Spatial Competition with Three Firms: An Experimental Study," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 73-94, January.
    23. Nagel, Rosemarie, 1995. "Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1313-1326, December.
    24. Martin J. Osborne & Al Slivinski, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96.
    25. repec:cup:apsrev:v:81:y:1987:i:02:p:525-537_19 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Lindner, Florian & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "Level-k reasoning and time pressure in the 11–20 money request game," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 542-545.
    27. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    28. Stahl, Dale II & Wilson, Paul W., 1994. "Experimental evidence on players' models of other players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 309-327, December.
    29. Dellis, Arnaud & Oak, Mandar P., 2006. "Approval voting with endogenous candidates," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 47-76, January.
    30. Shlomo Weber, 1997. "Entry deterrence in electoral spatial competition," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 15(1), pages 31-56.
    31. John Cadigan, 2005. "The Citizen Candidate Model: An Experimental Analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 197-216, April.
    32. repec:cup:apsrev:v:98:y:2004:i:01:p:77-90_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    33. repec:eee:gamebe:v:104:y:2017:i:c:p:494-506 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. repec:cup:apsrev:v:105:y:2011:i:03:p:530-551_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    35. Thomas R. Palfrey, 1984. "Spatial Equilibrium with Entry," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 51(1), pages 139-156.
    36. Dimitrios Xefteris, 2016. "Candidate valence in a spatial model with entry," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 05-2016, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    37. Wittman, Donald, 1977. "Candidates with policy preferences: A dynamic model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 180-189, February.
    38. Shlomo Weber, 1992. "On Hierarchical Spatial Competition," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(2), pages 407-425.
    39. André Blais & Jean-François Laslier & Karine Van Der Straeten, 2016. "Voting Experiments," Post-Print halshs-01388615, HAL.
    40. Osborne, Martin J & Pitchik, Carolyn, 1986. "The Nature of Equilibrium in a Location Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(1), pages 223-237, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electoral competition; Entry; Third party; Spatial model; Experiment;

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    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:eee:jeborg:v:148:y:2018:i:c:p:121-134. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.