IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/feempr/12191.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Valence Advantages and Public Goods Consumption: Does a Disadvantaged Candidate Choose an Extremist Position?

Author

Listed:
  • Soubeyran, Raphael

Abstract

Does a disadvantaged candidate always choose an extremist program? When does a less competent candidate have an incentive to move to extreme positions in order to differentiate himself from the more competent candidate? If the answer to these questions were positive, as suggested in recent work (Ansolabehere and Snyder (2000), Aragones and Palfrey (2002), Groseclose (1999), and Aragones and Palfrey (2003)), this would mean that extremist candidates are bad politicians. We consider a two candidates electoral competition over public consumption, with a two dimensional policy space and two dimensions of candidates heterogeneity. In this setting, we show that the conclusion depends on candidates relative competences over the two public goods and distinguish between two types of advantages (an absolute advantage and comparative advantage in providing the two public goods).

Suggested Citation

  • Soubeyran, Raphael, 2006. "Valence Advantages and Public Goods Consumption: Does a Disadvantaged Candidate Choose an Extremist Position?," Privatisation Regulation Corporate Governance Working Papers 12191, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:feempr:12191
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.12191
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/12191/files/wp060084.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.12191?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Enriqueta Aragones & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2003. "Spatial Competition Between Two Candidates of Different Quality: The Effects of Candidate Ideology and Private Information," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 573.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    2. Aragones, Enriqueta & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "Mixed Equilibrium in a Downsian Model with a Favored Candidate," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 131-161, March.
    3. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521428316.
    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. Raphaël Soubeyran, 2009. "Does a Disadvantaged Candidate Choose an Extremist Position?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 93-94, pages 301-326.
    2. Thomas Markussen & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2010. "Serving the Public Interest," NRN working papers 2010-21, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    3. Aragones, Enriqueta & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "Mixed Equilibrium in a Downsian Model with a Favored Candidate," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 131-161, March.
    4. Humberto Llavador, 2006. "Electoral Platforms, Implemented Policies, and Abstention," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 27(1), pages 55-81, August.
    5. Dodlova, Marina & Zudenkova, Galina, 2021. "Incumbents’ performance and political extremism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    6. Raphaël Soubeyran, 2006. "Valence Advantages and Public Goods Consumption: Does a Disadvantaged Candidate Choose an Extremist Position?," Working Papers 2006.84, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    7. Paul Redmond, 2017. "Incumbent-challenger and open-seat elections in a spatial model of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 79-97, January.
    8. Aragonès, Enriqueta & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2012. "Candidate quality in a Downsian model with a continuous policy space," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 464-480.
    9. Enriqueta Aragones & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2002. "The Effect of Candidate Quality on Electoral Equilibrium: An Experimental Study," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 530.02, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    10. Ashworth, Scott & Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, 2009. "Elections with platform and valence competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 191-216, September.
    11. Marina Dodlova & Galina Zudenkova, 2016. "Incumbents' Performance and Political Polarization," CESifo Working Paper Series 5728, CESifo.
    12. Pascal Gautier & Raphael Soubeyran, 2005. "Political Cycles: the Opposition Advantage," Public Economics 0510019, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Mizuno, Nobuhiro & Okazawa, Ryosuke, 2018. "Why do voters elect less qualified candidates?," MPRA Paper 89215, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. De Donder, Philippe & Gallego, Maria, 2017. "Electoral Competition and Party Positioning," TSE Working Papers 17-760, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    15. Krehbiel, Keith & Meirowitz, Adam & Romer, Thomas, 2004. "Parties in Elections, Parties in Government, and Partisan Bias," Research Papers 1862, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    16. Livio Di Lonardo, 2017. "Valence uncertainty and the nature of the candidate pool in elections," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 327-350, April.
    17. James Adams & Samuel Merrill, 2013. "Policy-seeking candidates who value the valence attributes of the winner," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 139-161, April.
    18. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    19. Archishman Chakraborty & Parikshit Ghosh & Jaideep Roy, 2020. "Expert-Captured Democracies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(6), pages 1713-1751, June.
    20. Frédéric Loss & Estelle Malavolti & Thibaud Vergé, 2013. "Communication and Binary Decisions: Is it Better to Communicate?," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 169(3), pages 451-467, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political Economy;

    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:ags:feempr:12191. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.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.