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Nash equilibrium and party polarization in an electoral model with mixed motivations
Author(s) -
Takayama Shino,
Tamura Yuki,
Yeo Terence
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of public economic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.809
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1467-9779
pISSN - 1097-3923
DOI - 10.1111/jpet.12360
Subject(s) - nash equilibrium , epsilon equilibrium , economics , mathematical economics , risk dominance , strategy , best response , symmetric equilibrium , general equilibrium theory , trembling hand perfect equilibrium , microeconomics , polarization (electrochemistry) , stochastic game , equilibrium selection , game theory , repeated game , chemistry
We study the existence problem of Nash equilibrium as well as the patterns of equilibrium policy outcomes in an electoral competition model with mixed motivations. Each party maximizes a sum of party members’ expected utility and office rent. The inclusion of office rent renders the payoff of each party discontinuous. This makes it difficult to apply usually fixed point arguments to prove the existence of Nash equilibria. By using a recently developed concept, multiple restrictional security (MR‐security) we provide conditions under which a pure‐strategy Nash equilibrium exists within fairly general settings, and further the analysis by presenting conditions under which various patterns of policy choices, including polarization, arise in equilibrium.