PhD Lunch Seminars Amsterdam

Speaker(s)
Aaron Kamm (University of Amsterdam)
Date
Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Location
Amsterdam

How does the electoral system influence the outcome of the political process? An important part of the answer lies in understanding how many and which candidates or parties decide to participate in an election. The citizen candidate model introduced by Osborne and Slivinski (1996) and Besley and Coate (1997) offers a theoretical framework for analyzing this entry decision. In this paper I will experimentally compare the case of plurality voting and proportional representation (modeled like in Hamlin and Hjortlung, 2000) to test the theoretical predictions. Furthermore I will offer a theoretical analysis of entry under proportional representation taking coalitions into account.