A group of agents has to decide whether to accept or reject a proposal. Agents vote in favor or against the proposal and, if the number of agents in favor is greater to certain quota, the proposal is accepted. The \textit{socially optimal decision} is the one adopted when all agents vote...

We present a framework to analyze the relative importance of issues for the electorate. We distinguish two concepts -- issue salience and issue divisiveness -- and present those in the context of the multidimensional spatial model. Issue salience, which is widely studied in empirical and...

This paper extends the Downsian-Hotelling model of electoral competition to allow for unobserved qualitative differences between candidates. I show that these underlying qualitative differences generate pure strategy Nash equilibria, even if policies are defined in a multidimensional space, and...

This article demonstrates that the issue-yield concept is able to predict the electoral strategies of mainstream and challenger parties at the 2017 German federal election. While the electorate of mainstream parties favour valence issues, the Greens and the AfD can gain more by concentrating on...