Gradualism in Dynamic Agenda Formation

Abstract

We analyze a dynamic model of agenda formation in which players compete in each period to put their ideal policies on the agenda. In each period, with some probability, a decision maker is called upon to take an action from the agenda. We show that in any Markov equilibrium of this game, players with extreme ideal policies will always compete to be in the agenda. On the other hand, there is a positive probability that in each round a more moderate policy will arise on the agenda. Therefore, agenda formation is a gradual process which evolves to include better policies for the decision maker but at a relatively slow pace.