Election Timing

In many parliamentary systems such as in Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom (UK), election timing is an important control wielded by the prevailing government to maximize its expected remaining life in power. Governments also make timely policy announcements to manipulate their popularity, and in conjunction with election timing can further extend their life in power. Oppositions, on the other hand have no influence over election timing, but maintain a set of their own policy announcements which are expected to sway voters’ intentions away from governments and in favor of themselves. This problem has been discussed in many academic literature, but only a few use approaches discussed in this book. This book provides approaches using stochastic differential equations (SDEs) in modelling poll data in Australia. SDEs have been extensively used to model various phenomena in daily life, such as in finance, insurance, biology, physics and many other areas. This book is useful for academics in mathematics, physics, finance, biology, political science or anyone else who interested in the applications of mathematics in politics.