IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcm/deptwp/1992-02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Candidate Positioning and Entry in a Political Competition

Author

Listed:
  • Martin J. Osborne

Abstract

I first show that if there are more than two potential candidates in the Hotelling-Downs model of the simultaneous choice of positions by politicians then an equilibrium fails to exist in a wide range of situations. Subsequently I study a temporal model in which candidates are free to act whenever they wish. For the case of three potential candidates I find that in every equilibrium exactly one candidate enters. There is always an equilibrium in which the position chosen by the entrant is the median; the only other possibility is that the position chosen is far from the median.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin J. Osborne, 1992. "Candidate Positioning and Entry in a Political Competition," Department of Economics Working Papers 1992-02, McMaster University.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcm:deptwp:1992-02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/rsrch/papers/archive/deptwp9209.ps
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Thomas R. Palfrey, 1984. "Spatial Equilibrium with Entry," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(1), pages 139-156.
    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. Dimitrios Xefteris, 2018. "Candidate valence in a spatial model with entry," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 341-359, September.
    2. James F. Adams, 2015. "Competing for votes," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 12, pages 201-217, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Zakharov Alexei, 2005. "Candidate location and endogenous valence," EERC Working Paper Series 05-17e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    4. James Adams, 1998. "Partisan Voting and Multiparty Spatial Competition," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 5-31, January.
    5. 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.
    6. Sengupta, Abhijit & Sengupta, Kunal, 2008. "A Hotelling-Downs model of electoral competition with the option to quit," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 661-674, March.
    7. Simon Loertscher & Gerd Muehlheusser, 2008. "Dynamic Location Games," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1042, The University of Melbourne.
    8. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    9. Brusco, Sandro & Roy, Jaideep, 2016. "Cycles in public opinion and the dynamics of stable party systems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 413-430.
    10. Kocenda, Evzen & Hanousek, Jan & Engelmann, Dirk, 2008. "Currencies, competition, and clans," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1115-1132.
    11. Gersbach, Hans & Jackson, Matthew O. & Muller, Philippe & Tejada, Oriol, 2023. "Electoral competition with costly policy changes: A dynamic perspective," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    12. Rusinowska, Agnieszka & Taalaibekova, Akylai, 2019. "Opinion formation and targeting when persuaders have extreme and centrist opinions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 9-27.
    13. Borenstein, Severin & Netz, Janet, 1999. "Why do all the flights leave at 8 am?: Competition and departure-time differentiation in airline markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 611-640, July.
    14. H Kohsaka, 1989. "An Analysis of Competitive Oscillations between Japanese Twin Cities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 21(6), pages 803-816, June.
    15. Arnaud Dellis, 2022. "Does Party Polarization Affect the Electoral Prospects of a New Centrist Candidate?," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-20, July.
    16. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.
    17. Alesina, A. & Rosenthal, H., 1989. "Moderating Elections," Working papers 537, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    18. Mohajan, Devajit & Mohajan, Haradhan, 2023. "The Responses of an Organization for the Increase in Wage Rates: Profit Maximization Cases," MPRA Paper 118238, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Jun 2023.
    19. Samuel Merrill & Bernard Grofman, 2019. "What are the effects of entry of new extremist parties on the policy platforms of mainstream parties?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(3), pages 453-473, July.
    20. Richard Chisik & Robert Lemke, 2006. "When winning is the only thing: pure strategy Nash equilibria in a three-candidate spatial voting model," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 26(1), pages 209-215, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • 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:mcm:deptwp:1992-02. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demcmca.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.