Inattentive Voters and Electoral Competition

Ianni, Antonella (2019) Inattentive Voters and Electoral Competition

Abstract

We study a voting model in which policy motivated candidates compete
for the attention of voters, who value both ideology and valence.
Candidates compete over policies and valence, by drawing voters'
attention to the most salient attribute. While ideology is perfectly
observable, valence is unknown and estimated by voters on the basis of
some private signal, as well as on the observation of their
neighbours' choices. We characterize policy salient equilibria as well
as valence salient equilibria and show that the model accounts
explicitly for two types of externalities:
- An attention externality, whereby strategic positioning of
candidates in one dimension affects how the other is perceived, by
influencing the salience of either policy or valence;
- A spatial externality, whereby voters' perception of valence leads
to band-wagons in the dynamics of voters' choices.
Results show that the median voter result is reversed and candidates
strategically differentiate their choices to make one or the other
dimension salient, and as such attractive to voters. These findings
have significant implications in terms of polarization of platforms
and space-time allocation of funding in an electoral campaign, where
two candidates run in a winner-take-all election.
JEL: D72, D03, C72.

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Contributors

Author: Antonella Ianni

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