# Ulric B. and Evelyn L. Bray Social Sciences Seminar

Wednesday, May 11, 2022
4:00pm to 5:00pm
The described features of the equilibria have interesting implications for the dynamics of beliefs and bipartisanship. First, if the voter starts off pessimistic, she will remain pessimistic forever. Second, a pessimistic voter is better off the more pessimistic she is, as bipartisan opportunities are only taken advantage of when she is sufficiently pessimistic. Third, if the voter starts very pessimistic but the state is high (or there are a few good'' draws), an initial period of bipartisanship will be followed by a partisan trap. Finally, for any non-degenerate belief, no matter how optimistic, there exists a finite sequence of bad realizations when bipartisan opportunities are not available after which the voter chooses an aligned politician over a misaligned politician. Once this happens, the players are stuck in a partisan trap forever. Hence, partisan traps occur with positive probability even if the voter starts with optimistic beliefs.