In most major democracies there are very fewparties compared to the number of possible policy positions held by voters. We provide an efficiency rationale for why it might be appropriate to limit the proliferation of parties. In our model, the larger the number of parties, the greater the...

The social context can have a large impact on economic decisions. The theoretical challenge is to formulate a model that encompasses both social and economic decisions in a meaningful manner. We discuss the incorporation of social context into neoclassical economic models using social...

We analyze conditions under which candidates' reputations may affect voters' beliefs over what policy will be implemented by the winning candidate of an election. We develop a model of repeated elections with complete information in which candidates are purely ideological. We analyze an...