Probabilistic voting model
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The probabilistic voting theory, also known as the probabilistic voting model, is a voting theory developed by professors Assar Lindbeck and Jörgen Weibull in the article "Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition", published in 1987 in the journal Public Choice, which has gradually replaced the median voter theory, thanks to its ability to find an equilibrium in a multi-dimensional space.
The probabilistic voting model assumes that voters are imperfectly informed about candidates and their platforms. Candidates are also imperfectly informed about the utility preferences of the electorate and the distribution of voters' preferences.
Unlike the median voter theorem, what drives the equilibrium policy is both the numerosity and the density of social groups and not the median position of voters on a preference scale. This difference explains why social groups which have a great homogeneity of preferences are more politically powerful than those whose preferences are dispersed.
Applications
Political economy and public economics are the main fields where the probabilistic voting theory is applied. In particular, it was used to explain public expenditure programmes (Persson & Tabellini, 2000; Hassler, Krusell, Storesletten & Zilibotti, 2005), public debt dynamics (Song, Storesletten & Zilibotti, Econometrica 2012) social security systems (Profeta, 2002; Gonzalez Eiras and Niepelt, 2008) and taxation (Hettich & Winer, 1999 and Canegrati, 2007).[full citation needed]
References
Assar Lindbeck, and Jörgen W. Weibull (1987). "Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition." Public Choice, 52(3), 273-297.
Gonzalez-Eiras, Martín, and Dirk Niepelt (2008). "The Future of Social Security." Journal of Monetary Economics 55, 197-218
John Hassler, Per Krusell, Kjetil Storesletten, and Fabrizio Zilibotti (2005). "The dynamics of government." Journal of Monetary Economics 52 (7), 1331-1358
Persson, Torsten, and Guido Tabellini (2000). Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Paola Profeta (2002). "Retirement and Social Security in a Probabilistic Voting Model" International Tax and Public Finance 9, 331-348.
Zheng Song, Kjetil Storeseletten, and Fabrizio Zilibotti (2012). "Rotten parents and disciplined children: A politico-economic theory of public expenditure and debt". Econometrica 80 (6), 2785–2803