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