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Targeted Campaign Competition, Loyal Voters, and Supermajorities

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  • Pierre C. Boyer
  • Kai A. Konrad

Abstract

We consider a two-candidate campaign competition in majoritarian systems with many voters. Some voters are loyal, some can be influenced by campaign spending. Own loyalty with respect to a candidate is the voter's private information. Candidates simultaneously choose their campaign budgets and how to allocate them among the voters. We show that a candidate who has a group of loyal voters wins with a higher probability, but chooses the same expected budget size as the rival candidate. The equilibrium distributions of campaign spending target all voters equally in expectation, but target some voters more than others ex post.

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  • Pierre C. Boyer & Kai A. Konrad, 2014. "Targeted Campaign Competition, Loyal Voters, and Supermajorities," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2014-14, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
  • Handle: RePEc:mpi:wpaper:tax-mpg-rps-2014-14
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    Cited by:

    1. Esslinger, Christoph & Boyer, Pierre, 2015. "Public debt and the political economy of reforms," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113107, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Castanheira, Micael & Huck, Steffen & Leutgeb, Johannes & Schotter, Andrew, 2023. "How Trump triumphed: Multi-candidate primaries with buffoons," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    3. Denter, Philipp, 2020. "Campaign contests," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    4. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2018. "The Optimal Defense Of Networks Of Targets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 2195-2211, October.
    5. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2019. "The attack and defense of weakest-link networks," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(3), pages 175-194, June.
    6. Eguia, Jon X. & Nicolo, Antonio, 2019. "Information and targeted spending," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(2), May.
    7. Feng, Xin & Lu, Jingfeng, 2018. "How to split the pie: Optimal rewards in dynamic multi-battle competitions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 82-95.
    8. Marco Magnani, 2017. "Electoral competition with ideologically biased voters," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(3), pages 415-439, July.
    9. Jan Zápal, 2017. "Crafting consensus," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 169-200, October.
    10. van Gils, Freek & Müller, Wieland & Prüfer, Jens, 2020. "Big Data and Democracy," Discussion Paper 2020-003, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Campaign competition; vote buying; supermajorities; targeting; flexible budgets; asymmetric information.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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