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Political Competition, Ideology and Corruption

Aristotelis Boukouras
University of Warwick

Kostas Koufopoulos
University of Warwick - Finance Group


January 27, 2008


Abstract:     
This paper presents a model of political competition, where voter decisions are affected by their ideological adherence to political parties. We derive a number of interesting results: First, we show that an equilibrium exists even though voting is fully deterministic. Second, corruption and inefficiencies arise as endemic phenomena of the political system. Third, if the distribution of ideology is asymmetric, then political contesters may follow different platforms in equilibrium. Fourth, political instability is desirable for selfish politicians, irrespectively of their risk aversion, because it weakens competition and becomes a natural base for rent-extractive policies. Finally, the higher the ideological adherence to a political party the more inefficient policies this party will follow. Some of these predictions are consistent with the results obtained by various empirical studies, while the rest, to the best of our knowledge, have not been tested yet.

Keywords: corruption, political instability, voting behavior

JEL Classifications: G21, G28, H32, P16, P43

Working Paper Series

Date posted: January 30, 2008 ; Last revised: January 31, 2008

Suggested Citation

Boukouras, Aristotelis and Koufopoulos, Kostas, Political Competition, Ideology and Corruption (January 27, 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1087777


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Contact Information

Aristotelis Boukouras (Contact Author)
University of Warwick ( email )
Coventry CV4 7AL United Kingdom
Kostas Koufopoulos
University of Warwick - Finance Group ( email )
Coventry CV4 7AL
Great Britain
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