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Strategic Campaigns and Redistributive Politics

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  • Christian Schultz

    (Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen)

Abstract

The paper investigates strategic campaigning in a model of redistributive politics in a society with many groups and two parties. Campaigns are informative, and parties can target campaigns to different groups. Voters are uncertain about whether parties favor special groups. The parties will seek to target campaigns at groups where most votes are gained by informing about policies. In equilibrium campaigning will be most intensive in groups where the uncertainty is largest and where voters are most mobile. These groups will therefore be very well informed about policy and will accordingly be favored by the parties' policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Schultz, 2003. "Strategic Campaigns and Redistributive Politics," EPRU Working Paper Series 03-03, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:kud:epruwp:03-03
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    7. Ignacio Ortuno‐Ortín & Christian Schultz, 2005. "Public Funding of Political Parties," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 7(5), pages 781-791, December.
    8. Stephen Coate, 2004. "Political Competition with Campaign Contributions and Informative Advertising," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 772-804, September.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Jenny De Freitas, 2011. "Political Support for a Private System of Financing Political Campaigns," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 67(4), pages 352-377, December.
    2. Boyer, Pierre C. & Konrad, Kai A. & Roberson, Brian, 2017. "Targeted campaign competition, loyal voters, and supermajorities," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 49-62.
    3. Hans Gersbach, 2014. "Campaigns, political mobility, and communication," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 31-49, October.
    4. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    5. Julia Cage & Yasmine Bekkouche, 2018. "The Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," Sciences Po publications 12614, Sciences Po.
    6. Stephen Coate, 2004. "Pareto-Improving Campaign Finance Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 628-655, June.
    7. Jenny De Freitas, 2009. "Political support for the private system to finance political parties," DEA Working Papers 35, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Departament d'Economía Aplicada.
    8. Elena Panova, 2007. "Congruence Among Voters and Contributions to Political Campaigns," Cahiers de recherche 0722, CIRPEE.
    9. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage, 2019. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," Sciences Po Economics Discussion Papers 2019-09, Sciences Po Departement of Economics.
    10. Filippo Gregorini & Filippo Pavesi, 2011. "Do Campaign Finance Policies Really Improve Voters' Welfare?," Working Papers 209, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2011.
    11. Herrera, Helios & Levine, David K. & Martinelli, César, 2008. "Policy platforms, campaign spending and voter participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 501-513, April.
    12. Monica Anna Giovanniello, 2017. "Echo Chambers: Voter-to-Voter Communication and Political Competition," 2017 Papers pgi364, Job Market Papers.
    13. Daniel Houser & Sandra Ludwig & Thomas Stratmann, 2009. "Does Deceptive Advertising Reduce Political Participation? Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 1011, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    14. Kovenock, Dan & Roberson, Brian, 2011. "Non-partisan ‘get-out-the-vote’ efforts and policy outcomes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 728-739.
    15. Zacharias Maniadis, 2008. "Essays in Aggregate Information, The Media and Special Interests," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000002258, David K. Levine.
    16. Daisuke Hirata & Yuichiro Kamada, 2020. "Extreme donors and policy convergence," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(1), pages 149-176, June.
    17. Anja Prummer, 2016. "Spatial Advertisement in Political Campaigns," Working Papers 805, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    18. Panu Poutvaara & Tuomas Takalo, 2007. "Candidate quality," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(1), pages 7-27, February.
    19. Arianna Degan, 2013. "Civic duty and political advertising," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(2), pages 531-564, March.
    20. Daniel Houser & Thomas Stratmann, 2008. "Selling favors in the lab: experiments on campaign finance reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 215-239, July.
    21. Stephen Coate, 2003. "Power-hungry Candidates, Policy Favors, and Pareto Improving Campaign Finance Policy," NBER Working Papers 9601, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Prummer, Anja, 2020. "Micro-targeting and polarization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    23. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    24. Donald Wittman, 2008. "Targeted political advertising and strategic behavior by uninformed voters," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 87-100, January.
    25. Ignacio Ortuño Ortín & Christian Schultz, 2012. "Public funding of political parties when campaigns are informative Abstract: The paper considers public funding of political parties when some voters are poorly informed about parties? candidates and ," EPRU Working Paper Series 2012-05, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    political economy; redistribution; information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General

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