We analyze a model in which voters are uncertain about the policy preferences of candidates. Two forces a¤ect the probability of electoral success: proximity to the median voter and campaign contributions. First, we show how campaign contributions a¤ect elections. Then we show how the candidates may wish to announce a range of policy preferences, rather than a single point. This strategic ambig...

Conventional models of single district plurality elections show that with three parties anything can happen extreme policies can win regardless of voter preferences. I show that when there are multiple district elections for a legislature we get back to a world where the median voter matters: an extreme policy will generally only come about if it is preferred by the median voter in a majority o...

We consider an odd-sized "jury", which votes sequentially between two states of Nature (say A and B, or Innocent Guilty) with the majority opinion determining verdict. Jurors have private information in form a signal [-1,+1], higher signals indicating more likely. Each juror has ability [0,1], is proportional to probability given positive signal, analog Condorcet's p for binary signals. assume ...

We study a dynamic version of Meltzer and Richard’s median-voter model where agents differ in initial wealth. Taxes are proportional to total income, and they are redistributed as equal lumpsum transfers. Voting takes place every period and each consumer votes for the current tax rate that maximizes his or her welfare. We characterize time-consistent (differentiable) Markovperfect equilibria in...

We simulate a two period olg-model with heterogeneous agents. Parents receive utility from quantity and quality of their offspring. Generating a trade-off between the former and the latter, an increasing wage rate leads to higher opportunity costs, lower fertility, and higher quality of the children. All this leads to an intergenerational persistence in fertility decisions and wages. We show th...

This paper studies how income inequality affects the probability of signing free trade agreements (FTAs) in a political economy framework. The median voter approach to FTA formation within a Heckscher-Ohlin framework predicts that an increase in inequality lowers the desirability of an FTA if the partner country is relatively labor abundant, ceteris paribus, and raises the desirability of such ...

We introduce endogenous political parties into the Hotelling-Downs voting framework to model the selection of candidates. First, activists choose which party to join, if at all. Second, party members select a champion for the general election. Third, the electorate median voter determines the (stochastic) general election outcome. Although party members trade off win probabilities candidate loc...