Taxes and turnout: when the decisive voter stays at home
Résumé
We develop a model of political competition with endogenous turnout andendogenous platforms. Parties trade o incentivizing their supporters to voteand discouraging the supporters of the competing party from voting. We showthat the latter objective is particularly pronounced for a party with an edge inthe political race. Thus, an increase in political support for a party may lead tothe adoption of policies favoring its opponents so as to asymmetrically demobi-lize them. We study the implications for the political economy of redistributivetaxation. Equilibrium tax policy is typically aligned with the interest of voterswho are demobilized.