Three Essays in Political Economy

Abstract

This dissertation uses game-theoretic models to understand the incentives politicians have to endorse policies during the campaign and to implement those policies when in office. In my first chapter, I consider the classic model of spatial voting, with the constraint that politicians may only make proposals from disjoint sets. In my model, an equilibrium exists if each median hyperplane passes through a region with a nonempty interior that contains the equilibrium policy. An equilibrium, if it exists, is generically robust to perturbations of the voters' ideal points. In my second chapter, I consider the effects of policy vetting by economists on a politician's incentive to implement her proposed policies. In my model, the voter and the politician are uncertain about the competence of the politician and the suitability of her proposed policy. I find that public vetting may impede efficient policymaking. In my third chapter, I consider the effects of endogenous voter attention on the equilibrium positions of the candidates in a model of one-dimensional spatial competition. Office motivated candidates take positions that maximize the probability that they are ex-post preferred to their opponent, even if such a position is unpopular a priori. In the context of a race between an incumbent and a challenger, I show that this prospect for persuasion may imply that policy convergence is not a best response.