Abstract and Keywords
This article looks at the known foundational results on spatial models of elections. The issues of equilibrium existence, the characterization of equilibria (in terms of their social welfare properties), and the distance between equilibrium policy and positions of the candidates are examined. It then discusses the results of the case where candidates are able to give precise predictions of voters' behaviour precisely; the article also introduces the ‘Downsian model’. The article looks at two models of probabilistic voting, before finally moving on to consider the most common objective functions that are used to model the electoral incentives of different types of candidates.
Keywords: spatial models of elections, known foundational results, equilibrium existence, characterization of equilibria, Downsian model, models of probabilistic voting, electoral incentives
Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
