This paper studies the effects that the revelation of information on the electorate's preferences has on voters' turnout decisions. The experimental data show that closeness in the division of preferences induces a significant increase in turnout. Moreover, for closely divided electorates (and...

We introduce a solution concept in the context of large elections with private information by embedding a model of boundedly rational voters into an otherwise standard equilibrium setting. A retrospective voting equilibrium (RVE) formalizes the idea that voters evaluate alternatives based on...

In multi-party systems, parties often form alliances before elections. What brings competing parties to coalesce into new entities? I present a model of electoral competition in which parties can form pre-electoral alliances and decide how binding these should be. Parties face a dynamic...

In a common-values election where voters receive a signal about which candidate is superior, suppose there is a small amount of uncertainty about the likelihood of the signal's outcome, holding fixed the correct candidate. Once this uncertainty is resolved, the signal is i.i.d. across agents....

In this note, we characterize the equilibria of the standard pivotal-voter participation game between two groups of voters of asymmetric sizes, as originally proposed by Palfrey and Rosenthal [1983. A strategic calculus of voting. Public Choice. 41, 7-53]

Campaign expenditures are not effective in increasing candidates' vote shares if voters do not respond to the advertisement when they believe that campaign expenditures are financed with "tainted money". In this situation, limiting contributions may reduce the number of policy favors that...

Do established parties change political institutions to disadvantage smaller, non-mainstream parties if the latters' electoral prospects improve? We study this question with a natural experiment from the German federal State of Hesse. The experiment is the abolishment of an explicit electoral...

Do established parties change political institutions to disadvantage smaller, nonmainstream parties if the latters ́electoral prospects improve? We study this question with a natural experiment from the German federal state of Hesse. The experiment is the abolishment of an explicit electoral...

Campaign expenditures are not effective in increasing candidates vote shares if voters do not respond to the advertisement when they believe that campaign expenditures are financed with tainted money. In this situation, limiting contributions may reduce the number of policy favors that...

Much work on the apparent ineffectiveness on incumbent spending in congressional elections has hypothesized that the productivity of incumbent spending is low because incumbents operate on the 'flat part' of their election returns function. Differences in campaign spending associated with state...