The Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences Colloquium Series presents

“Negative Campaigning in a Probabilistic Voting Model”
with Jan Brueckner, Professor, Department of Economics, UCI

Thursday, October 31, 2013
4:00–5:00 p.m.
Social Science Plaza A, Room 2112

This study extends the small existing theoretical literature on negative campaigning, building on work by Harrington and Hess (1996). While their analysis explores the determinants of negative campaign spending using a classic spatial voting model, this study relies instead on a probabilistic voting model, extending the use of this popular model to a new setting. The main lesson of the analysis is that negative campaign spending is higher for the relatively more- centrist candidate. The more-extreme candidate in the electoral contest devotes, by contrast, comparatively more of her funds to positive campaign spending. This result, which at first appears unrelated to the main findings of Harrington and Hess (1996) and Chakrabarti’s (2007) extension of their model, is actually consistent with their results upon deeper examination. The study also offers an empirical test of this prediction.  

For further information, please contact Joanna Kerner at kernerj@uci.edu or 949-824-8651.