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Challenges to the Standard Euclidean Spatial Model

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Advances in Political Economy

Abstract

Spatial models of political competition over multiple issues typically assume that agents’ preferences are represented by utility functions that are decreasing in the Euclidean distance to the agent’s ideal point in a multidimensional policy space. I describe theoretical and empirical results that challenge the assumption that quasiconcave, differentiable or separable utility functions, and in particular linear, quadratic or exponential Euclidean functions, adequately represent multidimensional preferences, and I propose solutions to address each of these challenges.

This working paper is meant to be published as a chapter in the volume “Advances in Political Economy”, edited by G. Caballero, D. Kselman and N. Schofield. I thank Scott Tyson for suggestions. Comments to ammend errors or to provide updates to the working paper are welcome even after the publication of the volume.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    D’Agostino and Dardanoni (2009) provide an axiomatization of the Euclidean distance; Azrieli (2011) provides an axiomatization of Euclidean utilities with a quasilinear additive valence term.

  2. 2.

    In support of their assumption of exponential utility functions, Poole and Rosenthal (1997) argue that (standard) concave utility functions do not fit the data well.

  3. 3.

    Calvo et al. (2012) analyze an additional complication: agents may not agree on which alternative is to the right or left of another on a given issue. If so, we cannot use a unique spatial representation; rather, we must have subjective maps of the set of the set of alternatives, one for each agent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics, New York University, 19 West 4th, 2nd floor, New York, NY, 10012, USA

    Jon X. Eguia

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  1. Jon X. Eguia
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Correspondence to Jon X. Eguia .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center in Political Economy, Washington University in St.Louis, Brookings Drive 1, Saint Louis, 63130, Missouri, USA

    Norman Schofield

  2. , Faculty of Economics, University of Vigo, Lagoas Marcosende, Vigo, 36310, Spain

    Gonzalo Caballero

  3. Centro de Estudios Avanzados, en Ciencias Sociales, Juan March Institute, Calle CastellĂł 77, Madrid, 28006, Spain

    Daniel Kselman

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Eguia, J.X. (2013). Challenges to the Standard Euclidean Spatial Model. In: Schofield, N., Caballero, G., Kselman, D. (eds) Advances in Political Economy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35239-3_8

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