Research

Working Papers

"Flip-flopping and Endogenous Turnout"  [Submitted]

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between candidates’ ideological consistency and electoral participation. I consider an electoral competition model where candidates can strategically adjust their platform to attract voters and potentially improve their vote share, a strategy known as flip-flopping. However citizens have an intrinsic preference for consistent candidates, and abstain when their utility for their preferred candidate falls below a common threshold. I show how this threshold shapes candidates’ flip-flopping strategy. When citizens are reluctant to vote, there is no flip-flopping at equilibrium. When citizens are inclined to vote, candidates flip-flop toward the center of the policy space. Surprisingly, I find that high-turnout elections are associated with more flip-flopping, despite voters’ preference for consistent candidates. Finally, I find that candidates tend to polarize when they maximize their number of votes instead of their vote share.

Presentations: RGS Doctoral Conference, AMSE PhD Seminar, MicroLab Seminar (UAB), Mediterranean Game Theory Symposium 2024, CEAFE/MWET, PET 2024, LAGV 2024, SSCW 2024, SING19.

"Allocating Communication Time in Electoral Competition" (with G. Fournier) 

Abstract: Political campaigns influence how voters prioritize issues, which in turn impacts electoral outcomes. In this paper, we study how candidates’ communication shapes which issues prevail during the campaign, through which mechanisms, and to what extent. We develop an electoral competition model with two candidates, each endowed with exogenous platforms and characteristics. Candidates allocate strategically their communication time across two issues to maximize their expected vote shares. We find that when one candidate holds similar comparative advantages on both issues, the disadvantaged candidate communicate on a single issue to saturate the campaign with one topic and then increases the randomness of the election. The advantaged candidate has the opposite incentive and communicate on both issues, creating an asymmetry in the campaign. We show that in some cases, the campaign can become entirely centered on a single issue.

Presentations: AMSE PhD Seminar, AFSE 73rd Congress, PET 2025, LAGV 2025, IHP's Junior Game Theory Seminar*.

*: scheduled