COWLES FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS
AT YALE UNIVERSITY

Box 208281
New Haven, CT 06520-8281

COWLES FOUNDATION DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 1488

Modeling Party Competition in General Elections

John E. Roemer

October 2004

We survey critically the brief history of modeling party competition in general elections, beginning with the Hotelling-Downs model with a unidimensional policy space, and the Wittman model with endogenous parties, to the multi-dimensional citizen-candidate and PUNE models. Some applications of the newer models are discussed.

Keywords: Downs, Hotelling, Wittman, PUNE, Citizen-candidate

JEL Classification: D72