Papers
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I adapt the Hotelling-Downs model with three parties and add an “antipartisan” component: antipartisans vote for the party located furthest away from their most disliked party. While the standard game without antipartisanship and uniformly distributed voters has no pure-strategy equilibrium, the present model allows for equilibria with, depending on the share of antipartisan voters, either distinct moderate or extreme party-positions. This provides a theoretical explanation for phenomena such as those observed in Brazil in 2018: an exogenous increase in antipartisanship, followed by polarisation. I characterise the conditions under which a change in antipartisanship by itself can explain such comparative statics.
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Climate clubs: adverse effects and how to avoid them
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In 2022, the G7 founded the "G7 Climate Club" whose main objective lies in promoting the implementation of the Paris Agreement. One of the proposed measures is a reduction in the production of emission-intensive goods. Analysing imperfect competition in a market for such a good, I highlight risks of said intervention: a reduced production by club members may increase the total level of emissions. In the new equilibrium, non-members raise production – potentially offsetting reduced emissions in member countries. For some parametrisations, the club needs to increase, not decrease its production and emissions to minimise the aggregate emission level. I discuss (1) conditions under which there is a risk of such adverse effects and (2) analyse the optimal club production levels; both (1) and (2) are highly dependent on the exact market structure and may, hence, be unknown to the club. As a remedy, I propose interventions that are, for virtually all parametrisations, guaranteed to reduce emissions, not harm consumers and can, other than the optimal production levels, be implemented without detailed knowledge of the market structure.
Eliciting information from multiple experts via grouping
(with Philipp Hamelmann)
A decision maker (DM) seeks to determine whether to adopt a new policy or maintain the status quo. To do so, she consults (finitely many) experts whose common interests differ significantly from those of the DM. As suggested by Wolinsky (2002)*, partial communication ("grouping mechanisms") among experts can – requiring neither transfers nor commitment – result in revelation of more information than full communication: by allowing for communication within groups of experts only and, hence, changing the events in which votes are pivotal, the DM may be able to manipulate experts’ strategies to her advantage. We elaborate on this, inter alia, characterising optimal grouping mechanisms and conditions under which grouping can improve upon full communication.
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* Wolinsky, Asher. 2002. Eliciting information from multiple experts. Games and Economic Behavior, 41(1): 141 – 160.