Information flow in political elections: a stochastic perspective

Abstract

Often times, a candidate's attractiveness is directly associated with his clear ideologies and opinions on various policies and social issues. Using the ideas of stochastic differential equations and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Process, we develop a phenomenological model to understand the effect of (un)clearly communicating a candidate's stance on policies to the voting public. We will show that, counter intuitively, there are quantifiable advantages to be vague on one's stance.