Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics / Gene Grossman, Elhanan Helpman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grossman, Gene.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Helpman, Elhanan.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w4877.

NBER working paper series no. w4877

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1994.

Summary:

We study the competition between two political parties for seats in a parliament. The parliament will set two types of policies: ideological and non-ideological. The parties have fixed positions on the ideological issues, but choose their non-ideological platforms to attract voters and campaign contributions. In this context, we ask: How do the equilibrium contributions from special interest groups influence the platforms of the parties? We show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups. The party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests.

Notes:

Print version record

October 1994.