Page 25 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE

DEMAND FOR DURABLE AND NON-DURABLE POLITICAL
GOODS

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Prof. Dr. Omer Gokcekus
John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations
Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ 07079, USA
E-mail: [email protected]

Prof. Dr. William H. Kaempfer
Vice Provost and Associate Vice Chancellor
University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Election participants include candidates, interest groups aligned with specific
direct-vote ballot measures or referenda and political parties. Armed with a budget

of resources, these participants consume a variety of political goods designed to

produce the utility associated with a successful election outcome. However these
various participants have very different political life cycles: in most cases special

interests will participate in only one election or generation in a given jurisdiction;
candidates for office can expect a limited number of elections or generations in

which they are candidates for a particular office (and perhaps only two of three if

term limits are in force); where as political parties can be thought of as infinitely
lived. These different political life cycles will impact the choice of political goods

by the participants with longer lived participants being more likely to consume
durable political goods such as data bases and grass roots organization structures.

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We would like to thank for their helpful comments and suggestions Edward
Tower, Jeremy Bennett, Meg Campbell and participants of session “C.1.2.:
Elections IV” at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Public Choice Society in Las
Vegas, Nevada.

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