Close Elections Research Articles

Run for Your Life? The Effect of Close Elections on the Life Expectancy of Politicians

We use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effect of election to political office on natural lifespan. In contrast to previous findings of shortened lifespan among US presidents and other heads of state, we find that US governors and other political office holders live over one year longer than losers of close elections. The positive effects of election appear in the mid-1800s, and grow notably larger when we restrict the sample to later years. We also analyze heterogeneity in exposure to stress, the proposed mechanism in the previous literature. We find no evidence of a role for stress in explaining differences in life expectancy. Those who win by large margins have shorter life expectancy than either close winners or losers, a fact which may explain previous findings.

You just made it: Individual incumbency advantage under Proportional Representation

Using close election outcomes, we identify a personal effect of incumbency on the probability of seeking election, and seeking and winning office in subsequent elections for elected officials in an Open List Proportional System. In many cases Danish local elections creates an as-if random distribution of candidates that are elected or not, which is an ideal setting for a Regression Discontinuity design. The incumbency advantage has been studied to a great extent, though primarily in pluralistic electoral systems, while more recent studies have extended the scope to Proportional Representation systems. This study adds to this budding literature by showing an advantage in a new context and focusing on candidate level electoral returns under conditions where candidates are arguably least likely to benefit from incumbency.

Invalid Ballots and Electoral Competition

In close elections, a sufficiently high share of invalid ballots—if driven by voter mistakes or electoral fraud—can jeopardize the electoral outcome. We study how the closeness of electoral race relates to the share of invalid ballots, under the traditional paper-ballot hand-counted voting technology. Using a large micro-level data set from the Italian parliamentary elections in 1994–2001, we find a strong robust negative relationship between the margin of victory of the leading candidate over the nearest rival and the share of invalid ballots. We argue that this relationship is not driven by voter mistakes, protest, or electoral fraud. The explanation that garners most support is that of rational allocation of effort by election officers and party representatives, with higher rates ofdetectionof invalid ballots in close elections.

Is the incumbent curse the incumbent's fault? Strategic behavior and negative incumbency effects in young democracies

• Studies based on regression discontinuity designs detect an “incumbent curse” in young democracies. • We note that RD studies depend on the analysis of close elections, which induce players to strategically in ways that undermine potential incumbency advantages. • Data from Mexico shows an incumbency curse in municipal elections but not in elections for national legislators. • Municipal data show that the vote share of second-loser parties drops drastically after a close election and that the magnitude of the curse varies in states governed by copartisan governors. • Failure to account for these mechanisms risks exaggerating the size of the incumbent curse.

Dynasties and the Political Budget Cycle

In this paper, we provide a wide set of results which point toward a better understanding of the role of political dynasties in representative democracies. Our empirical analysis focuses on local politics in Italy, using a large sample of mayors and mayoral candidates in the period 1998-2012. We highlight the relevance of dynasties in the political arena, in terms of electoral performances and self-perpetuation. However, our main contribution is a test of whether dynastic politicians enforce different policies. Based on three different specifications (panel fixed-effects, standard regression discontinuity design on close elections and propensity-score matching), we find no effect of dynastic mayors on average spending, revenues and transfers. Conversely, we show that dynastic mayors increase spending and obtain higher transfers during the year prior to election, especially when they can run for re-election. We then discuss the mechanisms which might explain such strategic behavior.

Electoral Uncertainty, Income Inequality and The Middle Class

We investigate how electoral competition affects the income distribution in society. We utilise a standard probabilistic voting setup where parties compete at two stages. Our model delivers that greater electoral competition in a district results in equalisation of incomes therein. We check for these relationships using data from Indian national elections which are combined with consumption expenditure data rounds from the National Sample Survey Organization (1987–8 and 2004–5) to yield a district level panel. Our OLS, 2-SLS and IIV analyses consistently inform that close elections lead to lower inequality and polarisation indicating a larger middle class.

Do Criminal Politicians Affect Firm Investment and Value? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach

We provide evidence on the effects of criminal/corrupt politicians on firm value and investments. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we focus on close elections to establish a causal link between election of criminal-politicians and firms’ value and investment decisions. We utilize unique datasets on the criminal background of Indian politicians and details on investment projects in their districts. Election of criminal-politicians leads to lower election-period and project-announcement stock-market returns for local private-sector firms. There is sharp decline in total investment by private-sector firms in criminal-politician districts: Interestingly, the decline in private-sector investment is offset by a roughly equivalent increase in investment by state-owned firms. Corrupt politicians are less destructive when the overall corruption in the state is lower and when they belong to a political party that is in power at the state or national level.

Misunderstandings About the Regression Discontinuity Design in the Study of Close Elections

Recently, the regression discontinuity (RD) design has become increasingly popular among social scientists. One prominent application is the study of close elections. We explicate several methodological misunderstandings widespread across disciplines by revisiting the controversy concerning the validity of RD design when applied to close elections. Although many researchers invoke the local or as-if-random assumption near the threshold, it is more stringent than the required continuity assumption. We show that this seemingly subtle point determines the appropriateness of various statistical methods and changes our understanding of how sorting invalidates the design. When multiple-testing problems are also addressed, we find that evidence for sorting in US House elections is substantially weaker and highly dependent on estimation methods. Finally, we caution that despite the temptation to improve the external validity, the extrapolation of RD estimates away from the threshold sacrifices the design's advantage in internal validity.

Candidate quality and US Senate elections

ABSTRACTWe find that candidate quality is a key determinant of US Senate election outcomes. We model the results for the last 10 US Senate election cycles, from 2012 back to 1994, for a total of 345 election contests. For the contests where an incumbent seeks re-election, a quality challenger can significantly diminish the advantage that usually attaches to incumbency. For the open-seat contests, which tend to be more competitive, candidate quality can swing a close election. Governors who seek election to the US Senate receive the largest boost, as indicated by our candidate-quality variables vector. Wave effects and presidential coattail effects are also shown to be contributing factors in certain cases.

Distributive Politics in Three-Level Systems: Evidence from a Large Land-Titling Program

Central governments often favor their elected district allies in distributive politics. But what happens when there are more than two relevant levels of government – e.g., a central government, the state or provincial government, and a municipality or county? Using an original dataset with information about a major South American land-titling program and a unique two-level regression-discontinuity design in close regional and municipal elections, I show that the central government gave priority to municipalities in which the mayor was an ally of the central administration but the governor was an opponent. The objective was to minimize party splits, undermine the electoral standing of governors, and gain the goodwill of squatters. I show that the program yielded an increased vote share for the president’s party in both allied- and, more importantly, opposition-held provinces. Taking only the president-governor or president-mayor relationship into account in this setting would lead to biased inferences and misleading conclusions about the central government’s strategy.

What happens when a woman wins an election? Evidence from close races in Brazil

We analyze close elections between male and female mayoral candidates in Brazilian municipalities to provide novel evidence on the role of women as policymakers. Using an objective measure of corruption based on random government audits, we find that female mayors are less likely to engage in corruption compared to male mayors. We also find that female mayors hire fewer temporary public employees than male mayors during the electoral year and tend to attract less campaign contributions when running for reelection. Moreover, our results show that female mayors have a lower reelection probability than male mayors. We interpret our findings as suggesting that male incumbents are more likely to engage in strategic behavior and this improves their electoral performance. Other explanations receive less support from the data.

Voice in a Clientelist System: How Civically Engaged Communities Succeed in Distributive Politics

Why do some communities receive better access to government programs and services than others in developing countries? Existing theories of clientelism focus on top-down political strategies which target either “core or “swing voters. In many settings, however, the local leaders that intermediate clientelist distribution are subject to monitoring and competitive selection by local voters. Drawing on fieldwork in rural India, this paper develops a formal theory of how “democratically mobilized villages, characterized by extensive civic engagement in the activities of the village council, place greater pressure on local leaders, and the higher-level politicians to which they are connected, to deliver services. The key prediction is that effective service provision requires both top-down connections to the ruling party at the administrative level and bottom-up democratic mobilization at the community level. The theory is supported with an original survey of 2,250 households across 90 villages nested within a close elections natural experiment in the Indian state of Rajasthan. The findings demonstrate how competitive broker selection and opportunities for “exit at the community level create scope for bottom-up pressure for performance, or “voice, within a clientelist system.

Homicides in Mexico and the Expiration of the U.S. Federal Assault Weapons Ban: A Difference-in-Discontinuities Approach

The year following the expiration of the U.S. Assault Weapons Ban (AWB), the homicide rate in Mexico increased for the first time in a decade. A difference-in-discontinuities model and a unique dataset are used to compare discontinuities generated by close mayoral elections on either side of the AWB expiration. The model finds a statistically significant increase in the firearm homicide rate following the expiration. The effect is larger closer to the U.S.-Mexico border, and is isolated to the timing of the AWB expiration. Furthermore, there is no evidence of a concurrent increase in non-firearm homicides or other violent crimes.

Is the Captive Audience Rule Now on the Board's Hit List?

For over 50 years, employers have made their last appeal to employees to vote against a union as closely as possible to when the polls open and ballots start to be cast. According to National Labor Relations Board rules, that last appeal can be made no later than 24 hours before voting begins. This gives management the opportunity to lay out the facts, make an emotional appeal to support the company and get the last word in prior to the vote. This presentation is often referred to as the “24‐hour” or “captive audience” speech. In close elections, it has helped create the margin for an employer victory.

Analyzing the Link between Dollars and Decisions: A Multi-State Study of Campaign Contributions and Judicial Decision Making

This article examines the causal connection between attorney contributions and judicial decisions in elective states. The results show that contributions are a significant predictor of appellant success in state supreme courts when judges receive contributions from the attorneys for the appellant. However, this relationship is contingent on the competitiveness of the judicial seat. The analysis shows that judges who win landslide victories in the previous election are less likely to vote with contributors during their term than judges who win close elections. This evidence bolsters the argument that contributions directly affect decision making when judges feel electoral pressure. The results also support the proposition that elected judges are more likely to vote with donors in states with nonpartisan ballots. While the contribution amounts are higher in partisan states, the judges in the nonpartisan sample are more closely aligned with their contributors when it comes to decision making.

The role of party politics in medical malpractice tort reforms

The U.S. tort system has experienced various reforms over the last three decades. While there is an extensive literature on the consequences of these reforms, very little is known about their determinants. In this study, we investigate the role of party politics in the reform process across U.S. states. In order to test whether any party effect goes beyond voter preferences, we apply the idea behind regression discontinuity studies based on close electoral outcomes to semi-parametric proportional hazards models. We find that in states with close election outcomes, a narrow Republican majority in the lower house is associated with a 50 to 150% higher risk of tort reform enactment compared to a narrow Democratic majority. Our results indicate that party politics plays a role in tort reforms over and above potential underlying preferences in the constituency.

Public Employees as Politicians: Evidence from Close Elections

We analyze the effect of municipal employees’ political representation in municipal councils on local public spending. To quantify the effect, we use within-party, as-good-as random variation in close elections in the Finnish open-list proportional election system. One more councilor employed by the public sector increases spending by about one percent. The effect comes largely through the largest party and is specific to the employment sector of the municipal employees. The results are consistent with public employees having an information advantage over other politicians, and thus, being able to influence policy.

What Good Is a College Degree? Education and Leader Quality Reconsidered

Do people with more formal education make better political leaders? In this article we analyze cross-national data on random leadership transitions, data on close elections in the US Congress, and data on randomly audited municipalities in Brazil. Across a wide range of outcomes, we consistently find that college-educated leaders perform about the same as or worse than leaders with less formal education. Politicians with college degrees do not tend to govern over more prosperous nations, do not pass more bills, do not tend to do better at the polls, and are no less likely to be corrupt. These findings have important implications for how citizens evaluate candidates, how scholars measure leader quality, and how we think about the role of education in policy making.

Does electoral competition affect politicians’ trade policy preferences? Evidence from Japan

This study examines the effect of electoral competition on politicians’ trade policy preferences using candidate observations from the House of Representatives in Japan’s 2012 general election. The study clarifies the effects of constituency size and the electoral strength of constituencies on candidates’ political stances. The empirical results provide evidence that politicians’ preferences for trade policy are sensitive to electoral pressure, but their reactions differ depending on the characteristics of each constituency. The results reveal that for a broad constituency with a large concentration of agricultural workers, election candidates are more likely to support protectionism than their counterparts running in a narrow constituency. For city district election candidates, electoral strength measured by the vote margin significantly affects their trade policy preferences. Candidates in close elections are more likely to be protectionist than candidates elected by a substantial majority, suggesting that electoral pressures deter politicians from supporting trade liberalization.

Unlock the Black Box of Corporate Political Strategies: Congressional Contribution and Lobbying for US Firms

Firms engage in two kinds of political strategies to influence legislative decision: campaign contribution and lobbying. In this paper, I set up a simple framework treating contribution and subsequent lobbying as a two stage game, and empirically investigate the connection between the two. I use random outcomes in close congressional elections as the identifying variation, and measure policy outcome of lobbying by looking at firms’ stock market reactions when their lobbied bills were voted in congress. Results show a complementary relationship between contribution and lobbying. A firm is more likely to lobby as well as spend more money in annual totals when it gets more connected via contribution. Connected firms also get more favorable policies. Having contributed to one more congressman in the preceding election cycle on average increases a firm’s market capitalization by $84,833 in 30 days following a legislative voting on its lobbied bill.