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Campaigns, political mobility, and communication

Gersbach, Hans

In: Public Choice, 2014, vol. 161, no. 1-2, p. 31-49

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    Titre
    • Campaigns, political mobility, and communication
    Auteur
    • Gersbach, Hans. CER-ETH—Center of Economic Research at ETH Zurich and CEPR, Zürichbergstrasse 18, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland
    Type de document
    • Postprint
    Langue
    • Anglais
    Publié dans
    • Public Choice, 2014, vol. 161, no. 1-2, p. 31-49. Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com
    Autre version électronique
    Identifiant OAI-PMH
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:325583
    Summary
    We study the interdependence between campaign contributions, the candidates' positions, and electoral outcomes. In our model, a candidate who moves away from his firmly established position towards a more risky one generates costs for the voters. Campaign contributions allow the candidates to reduce these mobility costs. We show that if donations were prohibited, then a unique equilibrium regarding the position choices of candidates would exist. With unrestricted financing of political campaigns, two equilibria emerge, depending on whether a majority of interest groups runs to support the leftist or rightist candidate. Interest groups may finance candidates whose position is far away from their own ideal point. The equilibria generate a variety of new features of campaign games, and may help identify the objective functions of candidates empirically.