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The citizen-candidate approach, proposed to study the performance of representative democracies, builds on a multi-stage game where the same agents are asked whether or not to become a candidate and, successively, to vote. Consistently, the solution concept adopted in Besley and Coate (1997) conforms to backward induction rationality. In this note we remark that it does not conform to forward induction rationality.

The citizen-candidate approach, proposed to study the performance of representative democracies, builds on a multi-stage game where the same agents are asked whether or not to become a candidate and, successively, to vote. Consistently, the solution concept adopted in Besley and Coate (1997) conforms to backward induction rationality. In this note we remark that it does not conform to forward induction rationality.

In this paper we show that in a simple spatial model where the government is chosen under strict proportional rule, if the outcome function is a linear combination of parties' positions, with coefficients equal to their share of seats, only a two-party voting equilibrium basically exists. The two parties taking a positive number of votes are the two extremist ones. Applications of this result include an extension of the well-known Alesina and Rosenthal's model of divided government as well as a modified version of Besley and Coate's model of representative democracy. This result cannot be extended to a general outcome function but, however, when the policy is determined by the two leading parties, in pure strategies, only two-party equilibria can emerge. Analogous result holds for coalitions of parties.

In this paper we show that in a simple spatial model where the government is chosen under strict proportional rule, if the outcome function is a linear combination of parties' positions, with coefficients equal to their share of seats, only a two-party voting equilibrium basically exists. The two parties taking a positive number of votes are the two extremist ones. Applications of this result include an extension of the well-known Alesina and Rosenthal's model of divided government as well as a modified version of Besley and Coate's model of representative democracy. This result cannot be extended to a general outcome function but, however, when the policy is determined by the two leading parties, in pure strategies, only two-party equilibria can emerge. Analogous result holds for coalitions of parties.

Voting games are characterized by the emergence of dominated strategies, that would be iteratively deleted by rational players. In this note we show, via an example, how applying iterated dominance restricts the set of equilibrium outcomes in Besley and Coate (1997) citizencandidate model of representative democracy.

Voting games are characterized by the emergence of dominated strategies, that would be iteratively deleted by rational players. In this note we show, via an example, how applying iterated dominance restricts the set of equilibrium outcomes in Besley and Coate (1997) citizencandidate model of representative democracy.

We present a model where a society elects a parliament by voting for candidates belonging to two parties. The electoral rule determines the seats distribution between the two parties. We analyze two electoral rules, multidistrict majority and single-district proportional. In this framework, the policy outcome is simply a function of the number of seats parties take in the election. We prove that in both systems there is a unique pure strategy perfect equilibrium outcome. Finally, we compare the outcomes in the two systems.