{"title":"Polarization, Valence, and Policy Competition","authors":"Peter Buisseret, Richard Van Weelden","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20210169","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"We study an election between two office-seeking candidates who are polarized along a partisan issue dimension when one candidate has a valence advantage. The candidates compete by choosing policy on a second issue dimension about which voters’ preferences are uncertain. Existing work predicts that the low-valence candidate “gambles for resurrection” by adopting non-centrist policies in order to differentiate from a stronger opponent. We show that this prediction is reversed in a highly polarized environment: the strong candidate chooses policies less aligned with the electorate but nonetheless wins the election with higher probability. (JEL D11, D72)","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Economic Review-Insights","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20210169","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
We study an election between two office-seeking candidates who are polarized along a partisan issue dimension when one candidate has a valence advantage. The candidates compete by choosing policy on a second issue dimension about which voters’ preferences are uncertain. Existing work predicts that the low-valence candidate “gambles for resurrection” by adopting non-centrist policies in order to differentiate from a stronger opponent. We show that this prediction is reversed in a highly polarized environment: the strong candidate chooses policies less aligned with the electorate but nonetheless wins the election with higher probability. (JEL D11, D72)
期刊介绍:
The journal American Economic Review: Insights (AER: Insights) is a publication that caters to a wide audience interested in economics. It shares the same standards of quality and significance as the American Economic Review (AER) but focuses specifically on papers that offer important insights communicated concisely. AER: Insights releases four issues annually, covering a diverse range of topics in economics.