Three Projects in Economic Theory: Models of Interdependent Preferences and of Candidate Competition

这项研究由三个项目组成--都是与普林斯顿大学的Faruk Gul联合进行的：（1）相互依赖的偏好;（2）候选人竞争和选民无知;（3）政治运动建模。来自实验的证据表明社会因素在经济决策中的重要性。决策者似乎会受到他人态度、意图或个性的影响，这是标准模型无法解释的。研究的第一部分将开发一个相互依赖的偏好模型，以捕捉利他主义、互惠或从众欲望等现象。 这项研究的更广泛的影响将是一个更具描述性的社会互动模型。第二个项目分析了一个政治竞争模型。标准的Downsian模型预测候选人会采取中间偏好的政策立场。美国和其他国家的选举证据往往与这一预测相矛盾。该项目将在假设一些选民不了解政策选择的情况下研究唐氏模型。迄今为止的研究分析了一个简单的模型，其中一个候选人致力于固定（中位数首选）政策，而另一个候选人必须在中位数首选政策和党派政策之间做出选择。相对于党派政策，选民更喜欢温和派，但当两位候选人都选择温和派政策时，选民对其中一位候选人有个性偏好。 更广泛的影响是（i）提供一个更好地匹配证据的候选人竞争模型;（ii）了解民主制度在汇总信息和执行中值偏好结果方面的有效性。最后一个项目将开发和分析一个新的政治竞争模型，以研究候选人的差异资源的影响。这项研究将分析一个动态的战略实验模型，在这个模型中，候选人产生的信息可以让中间选民了解与拟议政策相关的回报。 本研究将探讨以下问题：（1）拥有更多资源对当选机会的影响是什么？(2)选民能从限制竞选开支的规定中受益吗？(3)资源对政策选择的影响是什么？(4)倡导团体如何影响政策结果？ 这项研究的更广泛的影响是更好地了解候选资源对政策结果的影响。

This research consists of three projects - all joint with Faruk Gul of Princeton University: (1) Interdependent Preferences; (2) Candidate Competition and Voter Ignorance; and (3) Modeling Political Campaigns. Evidence from experiments points to the importance of social factors in economic decision making. Decision-makers seem to be influenced by the attitudes, intentions or personalities of others in a way that standard models cannot account for. The first part of the research will develop a model of interdependent preferences to capture phenomena such as altruism, reciprocity or a desire to conform. The broader impact of this research will be a more descriptive model of social interactions.The second project analyzes a model of political competition. The standard Downsian model predicts that candidates take median-preferred policy positions. Evidence from elections in the US and other countries is often in conflict with this prediction. The project will examine a Downsian model under the assumption that some voters are uninformed of the policy choices. Research to date analyzes a simple model where one candidate is committed to a fixed (median preferred) policy while the other candidate must choose between the median preferred policy and a partisan policy. Voters prefer the moderate to the partisan policy but have a personality preference for one of the candidates when both candidates choose the moderate policy. The broader impact is to (i) provide a model of candidate competition that better matches the evidence; (ii) understand the effectiveness of democratic institutions in aggregating information and in enforcing the median preferred outcome.The final project will develop and analyze a new model of political competition to study the effect of differential resources of candidates. The research will analyze a dynamic model of strategic experimentation in which candidates generate information that allows the median voter to learn the payoff associated with the proposed policies. This research will address the following questions: (1) What is the effect of having more resources on the chances of getting elected? (2) Can voters benefit from regulations that limit campaign spending? (3) What is the effect of resources on policy selection? (4) How do advocacy groups affect policy outcomes? The broader impact of this research is a better understanding of the effect of candidate resources on policy outcomes.