TY  - JOUR
AU  - Anderson,James E.
AU  - Prusa,Thomas J.
TI  - Political Market Structure
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8371
PY  - 2001
Y2  - July 2001
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8371
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8371.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
James E. Anderson
Department of Economics
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Tel: 617/552-3691
Fax: 617/552-2308
E-Mail: james.anderson.1@bc.edu

Thomas J. Prusa
Department of Economics
New Jersey Hall
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1248
Tel: 908.443.1565
E-Mail: prusa@econ.rutgers.edu
AB  - Many political markets are essentially uncontested, in the sense that one candidate raises little (or no) money and consequently has little chance of election. This presents a puzzle in the presence of apparently low barriers to entry. Using a variant of Baron (1989) we provide a theory encompassing both contested and uncontested markets. The essential addition is the presence of fixed costs of campaigning. We show that these may be quite small and yet constitute decisive barriers to entry.
ER  -