Greed as a Source of Polarization

Why don’t agendas of competing candidates converge?
Compelling answer:
• Campaign contributions help win elections
   ◦ (uninformed) voters can be influenced by spending
• Candidates cater to interest groups (lobbies)
   ◦ Campaign contributions lead to polarization
• Proposed by Baron (1994) and shown to work
   ◦ for particularistic policies
   ◦ but not collective policies
   ◦ Relative contributions unaffected by proposed policies

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