IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trf/wpaper/442.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Signaling Competence in Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Honryo, Takakazu

Abstract

We analyze how political candidates can signal their competence and show that polarization might be a way of doing this. For this purpose, we study a unidimensional Hotelling-Downs model of electoral competition in which a fraction of candidates have the ability to correctly observe a policy-relevant state of the world. We show that candidates tend to polarize, even in the absence of policy bias. This is because proposing an extreme platform has a competence signaling effect and has a strictly higher probability of winning than proposing a median platform. The degree of polarization depends on how uncertain is the state of the world.

Suggested Citation

  • Honryo, Takakazu, 2013. "Signaling Competence in Elections," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 442, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:trf:wpaper:442
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/17403/1/442.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Schultz, 1996. "Polarization and Inefficient Policies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(2), pages 331-344.
    2. Kyle Bagwell & Garey Ramey, 1991. "Oligopoly Limit Pricing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(2), pages 155-172, Summer.
    3. Heidhues, Paul & Lagerlof, Johan, 2003. "Hiding information in electoral competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 48-74, January.
    4. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114.
    5. 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.
    6. Sumon Majumdar & Sharun W. Mukand, 2004. "Policy Gambles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1207-1222, September.
    7. 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.
    8. Martin J. Osborne & Al Slivinski, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96.
    9. Stokes, Donald E., 1963. "Spatial Models of Party Competition," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(2), pages 368-377, June.
    10. Drew Fudenberg & Jean Tirole, 1991. "Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061414, December.
    11. Hummel, Patrick, 2010. "On the nature of equilibria in a Downsian model with candidate valence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 425-445, November.
    12. Steven Callander, 2008. "Political Motivations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 671-697.
    13. 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.
    14. Thomas Jensen, 2009. "Electoral Competition when Candidates are Better Informed than Voters," EPRU Working Paper Series 2009-06, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    15. Alejandro Saporiti, 2010. "Power, ideology, and electoral competition," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1003, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    16. Martinelli, Cesar, 2001. "Elections with Privately Informed Parties and Voters," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 108(1-2), pages 147-167, July.
    17. Wittman, Donald, 1977. "Candidates with policy preferences: A dynamic model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 180-189, February.
    18. Davis, Otto A. & Hinich, Melvin J. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1970. "An Expository Development of a Mathematical Model of the Electoral Process," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(2), pages 426-448, June.
    19. Navin Kartik & R. Preston McAfee, 2007. "Signaling Character in Electoral Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 852-870, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grunewald, Andreas & Hansen, Emanuel & Pönitzsch, Gert, 2015. "Political Selection and the Concentration of Political Power," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 05/2015, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    2. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Kalyan Chatterjee & Jaideep Roy, 2015. "Manufacturing extremism: political consequences of profit-seeking media," Discussion Papers 15-14, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    3. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Kalyan Chatterjee & Jaideep Roy, 2020. "Extremist Platforms: Political Consequences Of Profit‐Seeking Media," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1173-1193, August.
    4. Bandyopadhyay, Siddhartha & Bhalla, Manaswini & Chatterjee, Kalyan & Roy, Jaideep, 2017. "Strategic dissent in the Hotelling–Downs model with sequential entry and private information," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 51-66.

    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. Yasushi Asako, 2015. "Campaign promises as an imperfect signal: How does an extreme candidate win against a moderate candidate?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(4), pages 613-649, October.
    2. Yasushi Asako, 2015. "Partially Binding Platforms: Campaign Promises vis-à-vis Cost of Betrayal," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(3), pages 322-353, September.
    3. Zakharov Alexei, 2005. "Candidate location and endogenous valence," EERC Working Paper Series 05-17e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    4. Thomas Jensen, 2013. "Elections, Information, and State-Dependent Candidate Quality," Discussion Papers 13-03, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    5. Bernhardt, Dan & Duggan, John & Squintani, Francesco, 2009. "Private polling in elections and voter welfare," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 2021-2056, September.
    6. Michael K Miller, 2011. "Seizing the mantle of change: Modeling candidate quality as effectiveness instead of valence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(1), pages 52-68, January.
    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. Drouvelis, Michalis & Saporiti, Alejandro & Vriend, Nicolaas J., 2014. "Political motivations and electoral competition: Equilibrium analysis and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 86-115.
    9. Iaryczower, Matias & Mattozzi, Andrea, 2008. "Ideology and competence in alternative electoral systems," Working Papers 1285, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    10. Thomas Jensen, 2015. "Elections, Information, and State-Dependent Candidate Quality," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(5), pages 702-723, October.
    11. Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias K., 2012. "Political competition between differentiated candidates," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 249-271.
    12. Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias, 2010. "The binary policy model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 661-688, March.
    13. Aragonès, Enriqueta & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2017. "Voters' private valuation of candidates' quality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 121-130.
    14. Forand, Jean Guillaume, 2014. "Two-party competition with persistent policies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 64-91.
    15. Bernhardt, Dan & Duggan, John & Squintani, Francesco, 2007. "Electoral competition with privately-informed candidates," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 1-29, January.
    16. Christian Johansson & Anders Kärnä & Jaakko Meriläinen, 2023. "Vox Populi, Vox Dei? Tacit collusion in politics," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 752-772, November.
    17. Fabian Gouret & Stéphane Rossignol, 2019. "Intensity valence," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(1), pages 63-112, June.
    18. Dimitrios Xefteris, 2018. "Candidate valence in a spatial model with entry," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 341-359, September.
    19. Enriqueta Aragonès & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2017. "Imperfectly Informed Voters And Strategic Extremism," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(2), pages 439-471, May.
    20. Stefan Krasa & Mattias Polborn, 2007. "Majority-efficiency and Competition-efficiency in a Binary Policy Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 1958, CESifo.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:trf:wpaper:442. 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: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.