Learning from Polls During Electoral Campaigns

Estimating parliamentary composition through electoral polls

All electoral systems have an electoral formula that converts proportions of votes into Parliamentary seats.Pre-electoral polls usually focus on estimating proportions of votes and then apply the electoral formula to give a forecast of Parliamentary composition. We describe the problems that arise from this approach: there will typically be a bias in the forecast. We study the origin of the bia...

Election campaigns, agenda setting and electoral outcomes

Framing effects and bounded rationality imply that election campaigns may be an important determinant of election outcomes. This paper uses a two-party setting and simple game theoretic models to analyse the strategic interaction between the parties’ campaign decisions. Alternations of power emerge naturally, even if both electoral preferences and party positions

Opinion Mining in Social Networks versus Electoral Polls

The recent failures of traditional poll models, like the predictions in United Kingdom with the Brexit, or in United States presidential election with the victory of Donald Trump, have been noteworthy. With the decline of traditional poll models and the growth of the social networks, automatic tools are gaining popularity to make predictions in this context. In this paper we present our approxi...

Learning in Investment Decisions: Evidence from Prediction Markets and Polls

The role of authenticity in electoral social media campaigns

Authenticity is a popular buzz word in electoral politics, as electoral candidates and politicians are expected to be authentic in their public interactions. Since 2008, social media has become an integral part of elections in the US, and continues to gain importance in electoral campaigns around the world as social media offers electoral candidates a new medium for communicating with their con...