Optimal Districting with Endogenous Party Platforms

Bracco, E (2011) Optimal Districting with Endogenous Party Platforms. Working Paper. The Department of Economics, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

This paper proposes a theory of socially optimal districting in a legislative-election model with endogenous party platforms. We generalize the model of Coate and Knight (2007), allowing parties to strategically condition their platforms on the districting. The socially optimal districting re ects the ideological leaning of the population, so that parties internalize voters' preferences in their policy platforms. The optimal seat-vote curve is unbiased when voters are risk-neutral, and -contrary to previous findings-biased against the largest partisan group when voters are risk-averse. The model is then calibrated by an econometric analysis of the elections of U.S. State legislators during the 1990s.

Item Type:	Monograph (Working Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Districting ; seat-vote curve ; social planner ; policy-motivated parties ; office-motivated parties.
Subjects:	UNSPECIFIED
Departments:	Lancaster University Management School > Economics
ID Code:	49045
Deposited By:	ep_importer_pure
Deposited On:	11 Jul 2011 22:30
Refereed?:	No
Published?:	Published
Last Modified:	27 Jul 2012 01:21
Identification Number:
URI:	http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/49045

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