Incumbency Status Research Articles

Consumer Status Signaling, Wealth Inequality and Non-deceptive Counterfeits

Consumers often enjoy displaying luxury consumption to signal their private wealth status. The emergence of social media has fueled such desire for status signaling. Meanwhile, the rising of e-commerce has made it easy for consumers to search and purchase cheap non-deceptive counterfeits to send a ``fake'' status signal, posing a serious problem to the luxury (status product) industry. Motivated by these industry dynamics, we consider a market entry deterrence game between an incumbent status product firm (the firm) and a non-deceptive counterfeiter (the counterfeiter) who attempts to enter the market. A unique feature of our model is that the market demand is endogenously determined by a consumer status signaling subgame. We investigate the interaction among consumer status signaling, wealth inequality, and equilibrium market outcomes, as well as the implications of anti-counterfeit measures aimed at increasing the counterfeiter market entry cost. Our analysis yields three main insights. First, we show that without counterfeits, the firm is strictly better off from the heightened motive of consumer status signaling; however, such benefit would be neutralized by the potential counterfeiter entry. Second, we find that the presence of counterfeits lowers the firm's profit, but may induce the firm to raise its price. It may also increase social welfare, despite enabling a fake status signal. Third, we demonstrate that increasing the counterfeiter market entry cost may not completely eliminate counterfeiting insofar as the consumer status signaling motive and wealth inequality are high, in which case the firm would settle for strategic coexistence with the counterfeiter.

Party campaign strategies in Ghana: Rallies, canvassing and handouts

ABSTRACT Political parties use different methods—such as holding rallies, door-to-door canvassing, and distributing gifts—to mobilize voters during election campaigns across Africa. But how do parties choose which approach to use in each constituency? We propose that parties prefer to hold rallies in core constituencies, and to use targeted strategies—canvassing and handouts—in swing and opposition districts. However, opposition parties may not have sufficient resources to pursue such a strategy. Ruling parties have the dual advantage of being in a strong financial position, and having the ability to target core voters with state benefits between elections. Using post-election survey data from Ghana’s 2012 election, we show that the ruling party canvassed the most in districts where they were electorally weak and concentrated rallies in their home constituencies. In contrast, the opposition party focused all of its efforts in its home districts. The results highlight how incumbency status shapes parties’ campaign behaviour. They also suggest that ruling parties can combine core and swing voter targeting in different stages of the electoral cycle.

Mind the gap: Examining the role of gender in campaign staffing and compensation

Using publicly available data on campaign disbursements, we examine gender gaps in staffing and compensation for congressional campaigns between 2010 and 2016. We find significant differences in both staff representation and pay on the basis of gender. Women make up a lower proportion of campaigns’ staffs, on average, and receive less compensation overall than their male counterparts. These disparities are present across a wide variety of campaigns, but are exacerbated by partisanship, candidate gender, and incumbency status. We find that staffing and wage gaps are larger for Republican candidates, male candidates, and challengers. These findings provide new insight into distinctions in the political networks between Democrats and Republicans and the pipeline of future political candidates.

Candidate resources rather than ethnic voting: explaining the underrepresentation of Afro-Brazilians

ABSTRACT The parliamentary underrepresentation of disadvantaged ethnic groups is typically explained with a preference of the voters of the dominant ethnic group for co-ethnic candidates. This research note adds to the literature that calls into question the relevance of the voter preferences relative to resources of the candidates for the demographic underrepresentation of disadvantaged ethnic groups. It does so by providing important new evidence on a debate between scholars that argued for or against the importance of ethnic voting for the lower vote shares of the Afro-Brazilian relative to the white candidates in Brazil. We show that in the 2014 election in Brazil the direct effect of ethnicity on vote choice was limited and that other factors such as the candidates’ campaign expenditure, party affiliation, incumbency status and education were more important to explain the lower vote share of Afro-Brazilian relative to white candidates. We make use of a dataset including all candidates, which is merged with census and election data at the municipality level and apply fixed effects models.

I choose you! Interest group endorsements in the 2018 US House midterm elections

In 2018, the interest group EMILY’s List endorsed over fifty women running for the US Congress, a list that is far from inclusive of the almost three-hundred women running in the November mid-term election. Extant work leads us to believe that incumbency status is the primary motivation behind whether an interest group will endorse a candidate for public office. However, scholarship has yet to systematically consider why interest groups endorse non-incumbent candidates and how these groups come to choose one incumbent over another. By studying the symbolic and substantive endorsements of two interest groups—EMILY’s List and the National Rifle Association—we show that interest groups place varying value on incumbent legislators and also take other factors (like district partisanship and seat competitiveness) into account when endorsing candidates. Further, we find that district-level characteristics, not candidate characteristics, are most important for interest groups in their endorsement decisions of candidates in open-seat races. Our findings have important implications for understanding how interest groups come to select candidates to endorse and also call into question the power of incumbency in these decisions.

Strategic choices by the incumbent and challenger during revolution and civil war

A game is developed where an incumbent chooses between benefits provision to the population, which decreases the probability of revolution endogenously, and fighting with a challenger. Thereafter the challenger chooses a degree of fighting, which determines rent sharing. A successful revolution enables the challenger to replace the incumbent. An unsuccessful revolution preserves the status quo, or causes standoff or coalition. The four possibilities of incumbent replacement, status quo, standoff, or coalition combine with the incumbent either repressing (providing benefits below a threshold) or accommodating (providing benefits above a threshold) the population, for a total of eight outcomes. Such a rich conceptualization of eight outcomes of civil war is missing in the literature. We show how an advantaged versus disadvantaged incumbent deters or fights with a challenger, and provides versus does not provide benefits to the population. The eight outcomes are mapped to 87 revolutions 1961-2011.

Personal or Partisan Incumbency Advantage? Evidence from an Electoral Reform at the Local Level in Italy

Abstract We analyze the incumbency advantage using a large data set on Italian municipal elections held from 1993 to 2011. We first apply a non-parametric Sharp Regression Discontinuity Design comparing parties that barely win an election to those that barely lose, exploiting the fact that partisan incumbency status changes discontinuously at the threshold of margin of victory of zero. In order to disentangle the personal incumbency advantage from the partisan effect, we rely on a reform that introduced mayoral term limit, and exploit the exogenous change on the incumbency status of mayors keeping the partisan incumbency status constant. We find that the incumbency advantage is essentially driven by the personal effect. The results are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies with excellent balance in observable characteristics. Also, the effect of interest is larger in magnitude for municipalities located in the South of Italy compared to northern municipalities.

A Catwalk to Congress? Appearance-Based Effects in the Elections to the U.S. House of Representatives 2016

This article addresses the question of appearance-based effects by looking at the U.S. House of Representatives election 2016. We broaden the focus beyond existing studies by offering a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the three traits attractiveness, competence, and likability while simultaneously taking into account confounding third variables and possible interactions. Corresponding to the comparative character of electoral competition in the districts, we developed a relative measure of the three traits which we apply in an online survey. This measure also takes into account the raters’ latency times, that is, their clicking speed, as a weighting factor for their ambiguity in the ratings. With these data we test whether appearance matters for the electoral outcome. We find that attractiveness positively affects the vote share, whereas perceived likability and competence play no role. The study also tests to what extent the found appearance effects are conditioned by incumbency status, age, and gender of the contestants. Furthermore, it gives hints which aspects of their appearance candidates could change to perform better at the ballot box.

Incumbency status and candidate responsiveness to voters in two-stage elections beginning with a primary

ABSTRACT Theories of representation suggest that candidates should respond ideologically to their constituency. Two-stage elections like those in the U.S. force candidates to decide which parts of their constituency they should respond to: citizens who are active enough to participate in primaries or those who only participate in general elections. We posit that non-incumbent candidates should mostly focus on the preferences of primary voters while incumbents should be largely unmoved by the preferences of either set of voters. We test these expectations using data from U.S. House and Senate contests and find support for our theory. Our results suggest that scholars should pay closer attention to the two-stage nature of U.S. elections when evaluating electoral responsiveness.

An examination of firm licensing behaviour after a payday-loan ban

ABSTRACTIn 2008, Ohio enacted the Short-Term Loan Law capping interest rates to 28% APR, effectively banning the industry. Previous analysis has shown that while the policy was effective in eliminating the payday lending industry, expansion occurred within the pawnbroker, small-loan and second-mortgage lending industries in effective policy periods. Extending this previous analysis, using branch-level licensing records from the Ohio Division of Financial Institutions, this study examines the firm’s decision to license at the branch-level both with a zip code and within a county. I predict the effects of the ban on the likelihood of entry in the small-loan and second-mortgage industries while also controlling for incumbent status as a payday lender. Results at the zip-code level show that the likelihood of entering the lending market as a small-loan lender increases by 35.4% and initiating a second-mortgage license increases by 6.3% after the signing the Short-Term Loan Law. At the county level, the probability of initiating a small-loan licenses increases by 15.3%, while the likelihood initiating a second-mortgage license increases by 6.3%. At the county level, branches previously operating as payday lenders are 1.1% more likely to re-license as small-loan lenders, though has no effect on licensing as a second-mortgage lender.

Being Heard above the Noise: The Role of Incumbent Issue Diversity in Election Campaigns

Historical policy reputations influence voters’ perceptions of parties’ electoral campaigns. In the face of their recent experiences in office, government parties’ thoughtfully crafted electoral messages likely compete for voters’ attention with a wealth of broader information about the government’s policy activities and priorities. For their message to be heard, incumbent parties must offer a focused policy message that draws voters’ attention to the issues they most prioritize. Considering the issue scope of parties’ electoral messages, I hypothesize that incumbency status determines the effect issue appeals have on the votes parties receive. Opposition parties may profit from including more issues, but incumbent parties’ policy reputations limit the potential benefits from diverse appeals. Using evidence from 25 OECD countries over a 60 year period, I find that parties’ incumbent status conditions the effect of issue diversity on parties’ aggregate electoral success. Voters reward incumbents for focusing their platforms, but reward opposition parties for diverse appeals. The results for incumbent parties are robust to extensive sensitivity analyses. The theory and evidence broadly suggest that incumbent parties with more focused policy messages can, at least partially, overcome the weight of their past policy reputations.

The Impact of Political Finance Regulation on Party Organisation

Abstract Political finance regulations require political parties to engage with a complex and multi-faceted regulatory environment. This article develops a framework to understand how political finance regulation impacts on party organisation and applies it to a diverse grouping of six parties from the Australian State of New South Wales. We find that all parties seek to capture the benefits of compliance, and minimise their exposure to the risks of non-compliance, by centralising and professionalising their organisation. However, the intensity of these responses is moderated by party characteristics, including levels of institutionalisation, party family type and incumbency status. The research thus highlights the intended and unintended consequences of regulation on party organisation, and illuminates the mechanisms through which change occurs.

Social media campaigns, electoral momentum, and vote shares: evidence from the 2016 Hong Kong Legislative Council election

ABSTRACTBy studying candidates’ Facebook fan pages and rolling poll data during the Hong Kong Legislative Council election in 2016, this article aims at examining the relationships between candidates’ campaign performance on social media, electoral momentum, and vote shares. We contend that, under specific contextual conditions, social media campaigns could affect candidates’ momentum during the election period, which can in turn affect vote shares. We also examine how the relationships between social media performance and electoral momentum vary according to the candidates’ background characteristics, including age, political affiliation, incumbency status, and scale of the campaign of the political group to which the candidates belong. The results show that candidates’ social media performance can indeed predict vote shares indirectly via the mediation of electoral momentum. The predictive power of social media performance is stronger for pro-democracy candidates, incumbents, and candidates belonging to political groups with larger election campaigns.

High-speed data provision by mobile networks in the Asia-Pacific region

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine in a fully up-to-date manner the position in respect to the licensing and launch of long-term evolution (LTE) in a region that attracts relatively little attention when treated as a whole because the emphasis is usually upon the very large individual markets (China, India and Japan) contained within it. The purpose is also to examine the role of international groups and the extent to which the licensing of LTE can make a difference to the structure of mobile markets in the region.Design/methodology/approachThe initial step was to compile extensive databases with respect to the licensing and launch of high-speed networks in the region – defined both narrowly and also to encompass countries that are often treated as part of the Middle East – arranged so as to emphasise the status of dominant incumbents. There is a discussion of new entry and its potential to disrupt incumbents.FindingsFor historical reasons, the region contains countries that have strong differences whether defined in terms of economic, social or cultural characteristics, and hence it has not been easy for a network with international aspirations to expand outside its home market nor for, say, European-based operators to gain a foothold. Attempts to introduce competition via new licences has also been problematic because of the strong, and sometimes very large, incumbents already present.Research limitations/implicationsThis is necessarily an overview that uses selected data to describe the overall picture because of the substantial number of quite different markets surveyed.Practical implicationsIt is possible to forecast how certain structural changes will occur – primarily the withdrawal of international groups such as Millicom that prefer to concentrate upon other regions.Originality/valueThe databases that underpin the analysis are author-compiled and entirely original.

Beyond the distinction between incumbency and opposition: Retrospective voting at the level of political parties

Retrospective voting is one of the most frequently investigated theories of voting behaviour. It postulates that voters punish or reward incumbent parties according to their performance. This approach, however, cannot explain why voters cast a stable opposition vote, or switch between incumbent parties or opposition parties, respectively. This study fills this gap by showing that this traditional view should be complemented with the approach of retrospective voting to work at the level of political parties – irrespective of their incumbency status. Using the data of the second module of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, it provides the first large-scale test of this new perspective on electoral accountability. The results show that satisfaction with the previously endorsed party is an important determinant of the current party choice, and that it is so for voters for all parties alike. These results provide a theoretical foundation for party switches that could not be explained by the traditional model.

Republican Candidates' Positions on Donald Trump in the 2016 Congressional Elections: Strategies and Consequences

Donald Trump's nomination posed a challenge for Republican congressional candidates running on the ticket with him in 2016. The nominee's intense base of support within the party combined with his unprecedented unpopularity more broadly required these candidates to think strategically about supporting or opposing him. This article examines how they responded to that challenge, what explains their different responses, and what electoral consequences ensued from their choices. The data show that candidates' positions on Trump primarily reflected the partisanship of their districts and secondarily their gender and incumbency status. Their strategic choices had little general impact in an election almost completely dominated by partisanship, but in at least a few instances refusal to support Trump may have been necessary for the Republican incumbent to win reelection.

Accounting for political opinions, power, and influence: A Voting Advice Application

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are online decision support systems that try to match voters with political parties or candidates in elections, typically based on how each responds to a number of policy issue statements. Such VAAs play a major role in many countries. In this paper, we describe the development and large-scale application of a new innovative matching algorithm for the most widely used VAA in Finland. We worked closely with the owner of the VAA, the largest daily newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat. Their previous algorithm, which one might call a “naive” approach, was improved by including measures of candidate’s political power and influence, using proxy variables of media visibility and incumbency status. The VAA was implemented for the 2015 Parliamentary Election in Finland; our matching algorithm was used by 140,000 voters (26.7% of the electorate) in the Helsinki election district. The innovative algorithm generated recommendations that many voters were happy about, followed by users’ incidental comments that this was the first time the VAA recommended candidates they wanted to vote for. This showed the importance of catering to different kinds of voters with a model not previously considered by any VAA in any country.

Beauty Contest Revisited: The Effects of Perceived Attractiveness, Competence, and Likability on the Electoral Success of German MPs

We test the effects of physical appearance on electoral outcomes for the 2013 German national elections. We find that a candidate's perceived attractiveness and, to a lesser extent, competence vis‐á‐vis his or her closest contestant increases the chances of winning a direct mandate, while likability plays a minor role. Additionally, we find the appearance effects to be conditioned by gender, age, and incumbency status. Our study advances existing research in four ways. First, we capture relative differences in appearances, which resembles real‐world situations more closely than absolute measures. Second, we proceed beyond a one‐dimensional assessment of appearance by simultaneously analyzing attractiveness, competence, and likability, including interactions. Third, the central role of parties in the German mixed electoral system makes an especially tough test for appearance‐based effects. Fourth, we use rater response latency to weight our measurement with an assessment of ambivalence.Related Articles Arbour, Brian, and Ernest B. McGowen, III. 2017. “.” Politics & Policy 45 (): 224‐252. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12197/full McKenzie, Mark Jonathan, Cynthia R. Rugeley, and Michael A. Unger. 2015.“” Politics & Policy 43 (): 562‐585. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12123/full Galdieri, Christopher J., Kevin Parsneau, and J. Scott Granberg‐Rademacker. 2012. “.” Politics & Policy 40 (): 680‐703. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2012.00367.x/abstract Related Media Video Clip: Fox Business. 2012. “Appearance Matters in Presidential Elections.” http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1383561524001/?#sp = show-clips Study.com. 2012. “Factors that Influence Voters During Presidential Elections.” http://study.com/academy/lesson/factors-that-influence-voters-during-presidential-elections.html Websites: Mlodinow, Leonard. 2012. “.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/17/candidate-winning-look-voters-romney-obama Shah, Yagana. 2016. “.” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heres-how-looks-could-affect-the-2016-elections_us_56ddb12fe4b03a4056793bb6

Politics & Policy: Note from the Editor

<i>Politics &amp; Policy</i>: Note from the Editor

Who wins in the Indian parliament election: Criminals, wealthy and incumbents?

The study examines the impact of criminal charges, wealth, incumbency status of the candidates and the party on their chances of winning and vote share in the Indian parliamentary elections 2009 using candidate level information on 8070 contestants from 543 constituencies. The descriptive and econometric analyses of the data reveal that there is a strong association between wealth, criminal charges and incumbency status of the candidates and the electoral outcomes. Wealthy incumbent candidates had higher chances of winning the election and these candidates also seem to be facing criminal charges. The incumbent candidates belonging to the state ruling party had higher chances of winning and increasing their vote share. Though criminal charges depress the chance of winning and vote share, the incumbency effects, particularly the party incumbency, has a bigger effect than criminality and wealth status.