
Open access
Date
2015-09Type
- Working Paper
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
We develop and study a two-period model of political competition with office- and policy-motivated candidates, in which (i) changes of policies impose costs on all individuals and (ii) such costs increase with the magnitude of the policy change. We show that there is an optimal positive level of costs of change that minimizes policy polarization and maximizes welfare. One interpretation of this finding is that societies with intermediate levels of conservatism achieve the highest welfare and the lowest polarization levels. We apply our model to the design of optimal re-election hurdles. In particular, we show that raising the vote-share needed for re-election above 50% weakly reduces policy polarization and tends to increase welfare. Furthermore, we identify circumstances where the optimal re-electionhurdle is strictly larger than 50%. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-a-010512345Publication status
publishedJournal / series
Economics Working Paper SeriesVolume
Publisher
ETH Zurich, Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH)Subject
Elections; Democracy; Political polarization; Cost of change; Re-election hurdles; Political contractsOrganisational unit
02120 - Dep. Management, Technologie und Ökon. / Dep. of Management, Technology, and Ec.03729 - Gersbach, Hans / Gersbach, Hans
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ETH Bibliography
yes
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