A Two Party System, General Equilibrium, and the Voters' Paradox.

Martin Shubik

ResearchPublished 1968

An application of the techniques of mathematical modeling and game theory to an investigation of the voting process and its function in the political economy of a democracy with competitive markets. The investigation is limited to the study of a two-party system in a very rudimentary form, operating in an environment in which the average individual acts as a passive voter and as a price-taker in the part of society that can be represented as a competitive market. Intransivity of preference among the policies offered by the political parties gives rise to a two-person game without a pure strategy equilibrium. In the symmetric situation, the parties must offer the same program; their expected "political profit" is zero, and they may try to appear to be "all things to all men" at the same time. 40 pp.

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Shubik, Martin, A Two Party System, General Equilibrium, and the Voters' Paradox. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1968. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM5770.html.
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