Ambiguity Aversion in Models of Political Economy

Four papers that use ambiguity aversion in political economy are reviewed. The first two (Bade, 2011a and 2011b) find that two important puzzles (equilibrium existence with multidimensional issue spaces and platform convergence) of the Downs-Hotelling model of electoral competition can be addressed by modeling parties as ambiguity-averse. The second two papers pertain to the Condorcet model of information aggregation. Ghirardato and Katz (2006) explains selective abstention through ambiguity aversion. Ellis (2012) shows that this abstention motive can be strong enough to prevent any information aggregation.