Taxes and Turnout

Résumé

We develop a model of political competition with endogenous platform choices of parties and endogenous turnout. A main finding is that a party that is leading in the polls has an incentive to cater primarily to the core voters of the opposing party. A party that is lagging behind, by contrast, has an incentive to cater to its own base. We analyze the implications for redistributive taxation and characterize the political weights that competing parties assign to voters with different incomes. Finally, we relate the comparative statics predictions of our model to the asymmetric demobilization strategy in the German elections in the era of Merkel.

Mots-clés

Political competition, Income Taxation, Turnout.;

Codes JEL

D72: Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
D82: Asymmetric and Private Information • Mechanism Design
H21: Efficiency • Optimal Taxation