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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Guenther, Laurenz |
| JEL: | D72 D78 N44 P16 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc25:325441 |
| By: | Federico Fabio Frattini (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how concurrent national and local elections affect the local political participation and competition. Leveraging a quasi-experimental framework provided by Italy’s staggered electoral timing, the paper employs a difference-in-differences design. Estimates reveal that municipalities holding concurrent elections exhibit lower levels of local participation and competition. Moreover, the concurrent election increases participation by candidates with nationally-established parties, while decreases participation with independent parties. This further translates into a higher votes share for nationally-established parties and a consequent higher probability of election. Elected mayors tend to have lower education and experience in office, while they are more likely to be from the municipality they were elected in. Further, elected mayors are able to attract more intergovernmental transfers, without substantially affecting local spending patterns. |
| Keywords: | Concurrent elections, Political Competition, Political Participation |
| JEL: | D72 H70 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2025.15 |
| By: | Walter, Johannes |
| JEL: | D83 D72 C90 C91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc25:325453 |
| By: | Apolte, Thomas |
| JEL: | D72 D78 D83 D91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc25:325394 |
| By: | Schneider, Maik; Gersbach, Hans; Tejada, Oriol; Lohmann, Vincent |
| JEL: | D72 D82 H55 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc25:325377 |
| By: | Bierbrauer, Felix; Boyer, Pierre; Peichl, Andreas; Weishaar, Daniel |
| JEL: | C72 D72 D82 H21 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc25:325406 |
| By: | Giovanni Righetto; Paolo Vanin |
| Abstract: | While democratization and enfranchisement are known to benefit minority groups in the long run, sudden increases in political representation can disrupt existing power balances, provoke resistance, and lead to worse policy outcomes in the short run. We document and explain this pattern. In our theoretical model, conflict and backlash are triggered by a sufficient increase in political power if preferences are sufficiently different. We exploit the introduction of an affirmative action measure in Italian local elections, which led to an exogenous increase in female political representation in small municipalities. Using a Difference in Discontinuity design, we document that, in line with the theory, moderate increases in female representation led to higher day care spending, while large increases resulted in lower spending on this gender-sensitive issue. Higher council dissolution rates and null effects on non-gender-related policy areas support the interpretation of the evidence suggested by the theory. Several robustness checks and evidence from Spanish data also support the internal and external validity of our findings. |
| JEL: | D71 H53 I38 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1213 |
| By: | Huikuri, Tuuli-Anna |
| Abstract: | Although globalization has coincided with rising women's descriptive political representation around the world, less is known about how women in political office shape international economic outcomes. This paper investigates the impact of women’s descriptive representation on inward foreign direct investment (FDI). Leveraging panel data from 178 countries (1966–2023), project-level FDI data (2003-2023), and firm survey data on investor perceptions, I test conjectures about the impact of women politicians on FDI attraction. I find that women's descriptive representation boosts FDI into autocracies, while higher number of women politicians in democracies does not have an effect on capital attraction. Although I find no evidence for the mechanism of firm's reputational concerns, legal commitments to women's political representation improve investor perceptions of regime's political stability especially in autocracies. These findings contribute to research on how women's political representation interacts with global markets, and the determinants of international capital flows. |
| Date: | 2025–09–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:tvpyg_v1 |
| By: | Nicole Stoelinga; Tuuli Tähtinen |
| Abstract: | We investigate how exposure to conflict events shapes individuals’ democratic preferences, focusing on support for democracy in general and perceptions of governance within one's own country. We examine how ethnic affiliation–whether an individual belongs to an ethnic group with access to state power–influences democratic attitudes, reflecting differences in social standing and expectations about democratization. Using a rich data set covering more than 30 African countries over two decades, we exploit variation in the timing of conflict events relative to survey interviews to identify causal effects. Our findings show that conflict exposure, on average, increases support for democracy, but the effects vary by ethnicity and regime type. In autocracies, conflict triggers rally-around-the-flag effects: support for democracy rises, but so do perceptions of the state. Violence also increases trust in ruling institutions in autocratic regimes, an effect that is absent in more democratic settings. |
| Keywords: | democracy, political preferences, conflict, protest, trust |
| JEL: | D74 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12178 |
| By: | Germeshausen, Robert; Heim, Sven; Wagner, Ulrich J. |
| Abstract: | The rise of societal goals like climate change mitigation and energy security calls for rapid capacity growth in renewable electricity sources, yet citizens' support is put to a test when such technologies emit negative local externalities. We estimate the impact of wind turbine deployment on granular measures of revealed preferences for renewable electricity in product and political markets. We address potentially endogenous siting of turbines with an IV design that exploits quasi-experimental variation in profitability induced by subsidies. We find that wind turbines significantly reduce citizens' support locally, but this effect quickly fades with distance from the site. We assess policy instruments for enhancing citizens' support for renewable energy in light of our results. |
| Keywords: | renewable energy, wind power, public support, elections, externalities |
| JEL: | D12 D72 Q42 Q48 Q50 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:327111 |
| By: | Ekatarina Juergens (Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK)); Sebastian Gechert (Chemnitz University of Technologie) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether political partisanship and political narratives affect voters’ opinions about public finances. In a novel survey experiment, we test the causal effect of pro-consolidation and pro-public investment narratives used in German general election campaigns on participants’ opinions on public debt and how to deal with budget deficits. We do not find a relevant average treatment effect of these narratives. However, they partly interact with political party preferences, which are a dominant covariate for opinions on public finances. We interpret our findings as a conjunction of narrative economics theory and the partisan bias literature, by which only emotionally charged narratives pass the partisan filter. |
| Keywords: | public debt, survey experiment, partisan bias |
| JEL: | D8 H5 H6 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:wpaper:227-2025 |
| By: | Brox, Enzo; Krieger, Tommy |
| Abstract: | We study how far-right mass rallies affect people's views about a city and thus location choices of nationals. To this end, we first exploit that the city of Dresden (Germany) unexpectedly experienced such rallies at the turn of the year 2014/15. Results from dyadic difference-in-differences and Synthetic Control analyses suggest that the number of (young) German adults who moved from another region to Dresden declined by around 10% due to the far-right mass protests. We complement our first analysis with a conjoint experiment where participants decide between two hypothetical cities. This experiment confirms that far-right rallies have a dissuasive effect and shows that left-wing people react stronger than right-wing people. It also reveals that far-right protests cause security concerns and concerns about finding like-minded people. The latter reaction is only observed for people that do not support the far right. |
| Keywords: | far-right movements, location decisions, internal migration, political protest, populism, regional competition for talent, reputation of cities, university students |
| JEL: | D72 I23 O15 P00 R23 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:327113 |
| By: | Sisak, Dana; Swank, Otto |
| JEL: | D72 D73 D78 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc25:325374 |