# An Analysis of the Supply of Open Government Data
## 2 Literature Review
### Determinants of the Supply of Open Government Data
Hence, Figure 1 shows that there might be voters who would like the lowest size of the public good, equal to \(gmin\) (maybe because he or she does not benefit from the provision of this good), while \(gmax\) is the size of the provision of other voters who want the highest level of \(g\) in the distribution (maybe because the personal characteristics of these voters make them benefit a great deal from this good). Every point in the line shown in Figure 1 represents the ideal policy demanded by a certain voter, and the position \(gMV\) is the ideal policy demanded by the median voter; that is to say, this position is the voter who is in the middle of the distribution of policies demanded by all voters participating in the election. Models of electoral competition consider that a voter will vote for the party that provides the policy that is closer to the voter's own preferences over policies. To see this, assume two parties, say parties 1 and 2, are competing for the vote of a particular voter, with the ideal policy given by \(gh\) (shown in Figure 2). This voter will vote for party 1 because the policy position of this party is closest to the voter's own preferences for this public good or service. Hence, models of electoral competition predict that parties who want to maximize the expected votes to be received in the election should decide to offer the provision of the public good or service demanded (or desired) by the median voter (see Figure 3). That is, the government should select a level of its policy equal to \(g=gMV\). By doing so, the expected proportion of the vote for each party is 50% of the vote. If any party deviates from providing the median voter policy, then the party expects to receive a proportion of the vote lower than 50% of participating voters and will lose the election. Hence, models of electoral competition make a strong prediction that can be tested empirically: parties who want to maximize the electoral support from voters in the election should estimate the demand for goods and services of the median voter. Figure 1: Distribution of policies demanded by voters. Figure 2: Policy positions of parties and the choice of the vote. A further example of how this mechanism works is the following. Assume the demand of the median voter for goods and services from the government increases (perhaps because the median voter has more income and desires more government services). Then, policy makers in the government should increase the supply of government services to satisfy the demand of the median voter. It is relevant to mention that there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that public goods, such as education, health, and infrastructure (roads and bridges), which are provided by national and subnational governments, are correlated with the incentives of elections and political competition. For global empirical evidence of such a relationship covering 118 countries for three decades, see [43]. The positive literature on public goods has emphasized that, if elections matter and if there is perfect electoral competition (as a similar concept to the idea of perfect economic competition), then parties select the ideal provision of public goods of the median voter [42]. In this case, there is electoral accountability, meaning that elections create incentives for the provision of public goods that satisfy at least a majority of voters. However, if there is imperfect electoral competition and parties have preferences for public goods (that is to say, individuals controlling parties desire certain types and levels of public goods), then parties might select the ideal policy of activists inside parties or the ideal policy over public goods of a minority group of voters in the electorate (In an election, there could be imperfect electoral competition when a party does not have strong incentives to use in its policy positions to attract a majority of the votes in the election.