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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | Plaza, Alejandro (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) |
| Abstract: | When voters receive real-time information about an ongoing election, do they coordinate strategically — and does that coordination respect ideological boundaries? I argue that viability signals produce ideologically bounded coordination: voters shift toward the most viable candidate within their political neighborhood rather than gravitating toward any national leader. To test this, I exploit a natural experiment in Peru's 2026 presidential election, where a logistical failure caused some polling stations to vote one day late, after partial results were already public, generating exogenous variation in information access across otherwise comparable voters. Informed voters concentrated their votes roughly 57 percent more than uninformed voters. A further test reveals that concentration rose sharply within the centrist bloc but not the right bloc, consistent with within-bloc rather than cross-ideological coordination. These findings illuminate how strategic voting operates under extreme party fragmentation and suggest that information revelation may strengthen rather than distort electoral representation. |
| Date: | 2026–07–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:dzntx_v1 |
| By: | Herrera, Helios; Trombetta, Federico |
| Abstract: | We define populism as a platform proposing a policy based on a mis-specified model of the world, a simple alternative worldview. Voters’ trust in the traditional/mainstream political class evolves over time and depends on traditional politicians’ performance once in offce. Crucially, political distrust behaviourally increases how gullible voters are to the simple alternative worldviews proposed by populists. Traditional politicians are aware of the populist threat and try to prevent it. In this novel framework we study when voters select populist politicians, how populist and their alternative worldviews survive/recur and their long-run effect on several measures of voter’s welfare. We show that the link between distrust and alt-truth gives rise a to a low-trust trap, where trust in the political class never recovers, leading to populists recurring in power. This trap/cycles need not always be detrimental to voters, as the increased pervasiveness of alt-worldviews also has a disciplining effect on traditional politicians. |
| JEL: | D72 D83 D91 P0 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19674 |
| By: | Federle, Jonathan; Mohr, Cathrin; Schularick, Moritz |
| Abstract: | We study the political consequences of inflation surprises, focusing on votes for extremist and populist parties in 365 elections in 18 advanced economies since 1948. Inflation surprises are regularly followed by a substantial increase in vote shares of extremist, anti-system, and populist parties. An inflation surprise of 10 percentage points leads to a 15% increase in their vote share, comparable to the increase typically seen after financial crises. We show that the change in voting behavior is particularly pronounced when real wages decline, and less evident when real wages are not affected. Our paper points to considerable political after-effects of unexpected inflation. |
| Keywords: | Inflation |
| JEL: | D72 E31 N40 N10 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19741 |
| By: | Osvaldo Meloni (Universidad Nacional de Tucumán) |
| Abstract: | Does the fiscal architecture of subnational government shape how citizens vote in national elections? This paper argues that fiscal correspondence is a systematic determinant of deliberate invalid voting in Argentine presidential elections through an attribution channel. In provinces where public spending is financed predominantly by automatic transfers determined by law, voters cannot connect fiscal outcomes to electoral choices, the transmission chain from presidential ballot to observable fiscal outcome becomes too opaque for rational voters to decode. Rather than casting a deliberate valid ballot, voters take the low-cost exit of depositing an invalid one. Using a balanced panel of 23 Argentine provinces across nine presidential elections from 1989 to 2023, I find that higher fiscal correspondence is associated with significantly fewer blank and invalid ballots. The effect is concentrated on blank ballots — deliberate protest votes — rather than null ballots, consistent with the theoretical prediction that the mechanism operates on the deliberate disengagement margin. Results are robust to instrumental variable estimation, exclusion of oil-producing provinces, and structural break tests around the 2001 crisis. |
| Keywords: | fiscal federalism, presidential elections, fiscal correspondence, Argentina |
| JEL: | D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:403 |
| By: | Agarwal, Sarthak; Chatterjee, Somdeep; Manchanda, Manhar |
| Abstract: | How do voters respond to adverse climatic shocks? We study this question in India, where voters can cast a formal "None of the Above" (NOTA) ballot, allowing us to distinguish pure protest voting from directed electoral sanctioning. We combine assembly-constituency election data from 2013-2023 with highfrequency satellite-based data on temperature, precipitation, and agricultural productivity. We first show that high temperature exposure is negatively associated with satellite-measured agricultural productivity. Further, temperature shocks increase turnout, but do not increase NOTA vote shares. Instead, they reduce the vote shares of recontesting incumbents and ruling-party candidates. Regular degree days reduce both turnout and NOTA vote shares. Heterogeneity analyses show that agricultural dependence shapes the participation response, while unirrigated agriculture mediates NOTA responses. Overall, the results suggest that climate shocks mobilize voters and produce targeted electoral punishment, rather than leading voters to express generalized dissatisfaction through pure protest voting. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Protest Voting, Temperature Shocks, NOTA |
| JEL: | D72 O13 Q54 P48 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1789 |
| By: | Francesco Capozza; Ruben Durante; Siddharth George |
| Abstract: | Voters in multiparty systems often fail to coordinate on majority-preferred parties. Using constituency-level election data linked to party-ideology measures across 96 countries, we show that in 20–30% of multiparty elections since 1940 the Condorcet winner does not win, and in roughly 10% the winner is the Condorcet loser. Failures are most common under plurality rule and in fragmented, volatile party systems, and systematically disadvantage opposition and culturally liberal parties while benefiting organizationally strong ones. Can information fix this? In four pre-registered experiments around Indian elections (N > 4, 000), constituency-level polls shift voting intentions by at most 2 percentage points, a precisely estimated null, despite modest belief updating, though undecided voters become 7 points more likely to support a viable party. A model with expressive motives rationalizes both results: polls refine beliefs but lack the leverage to overcome entrenched attachments, identifying boundary conditions on polls as coordination devices. |
| Keywords: | condorcet winner, coordination failures, polls |
| JEL: | D72 K16 P17 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12857 |
| By: | Bouton, Laurent; Castanheira, Micael; Stashko, Allison; Genicot, Garance |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the manipulation of electoral maps by political parties, commonly referred to as gerrymandering. At the core of our analysis is the recognition that not all inhabitants of a district vote. This is important for gerrymandering as districts must have the same population size, but only voters matter for electoral outcomes. We propose a model of gerrymandering that allows for heterogeneity in voter turnout across individuals. This model reveals a new strategy for the gerrymanderers: the pattern is to pack-crack-pack along the turnout dimension. Specifically, parties benefit from packing low-turnout supporters and high-turnout opponents, while creating cracked districts that combine moderate-to-high-turnout supporters with lower-turnout opponents. These findings yield testable empirical implications about the relationship between partisan support, turnout rates, and electoral maps. Using a novel empirical strategy based on comparing maps proposed by Democrats and Republicans during the 2020 U.S. redistricting cycle, we test these predictions and find supporting evidence. |
| Keywords: | Redistricting; Gerrymandering; Voter turnout |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19617 |
| By: | Bobkova, Nina |
| Abstract: | This paper shows how the voting rule impacts which characteristics of an alternative voters learn about. Before casting their vote, voters face a trade-off between learning about an objective quality of the alternative or about their idiosyncratic match. I show that the further the quota is from majority rule, the less voters learn about the objective quality of the alternative and the more dispersed are their beliefs about it. Among all quotas, the majority rule uniquely (i) aligns votes and beliefs, (ii) maximizes voters’ ex-ante utility, and (iii) aggregates full information for large elections. |
| Keywords: | Committees; Information acquisition |
| JEL: | D71 D72 D82 D83 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19777 |
| By: | Bluhm, Richard; Hodler, Roland; Schaudt, Paul |
| Abstract: | We study how the design of subnational political borders shapes the salience of ethnicity in politics. We introduce a framework for measuring how political borders align with a country's ethnic geography at the micro level. We then leverage quasi-experimental variation in the alignment introduced by Kenya's 2010 constitutional reform, which divided the country's eight provinces into 47 counties. Our results suggest that ethnofederal reforms, i.e., reforms that increase the alignment between political borders and ethnic geography, would reduce ethnic voting in national elections. Finally, we evaluate alternative border designs and derive the design that would minimize ethnic voting. |
| Keywords: | Kenya |
| JEL: | D02 D72 H77 J15 O55 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19715 |
| By: | Edoardo Grillo; Juan S. Morales; Alessandra Moresi |
| Abstract: | We study how politicians' adoption of social media, and the use of moral language, affect electoral returns. We compile a new dataset covering over 4, 000 Twitter accounts and almost five million tweets by US House candidates over 2008-2018. We document several descriptive facts: social media use rises and falls with electoral cycles, politicians' use of moral rhetoric increased over the period of study, and moral rhetoric is strongly associated with higher social media engagement. Using a regression discontinuity design on close primary elections, we find that social media use by candidates has a positive but imprecisely estimated effect on vote shares. This effect is strongly heterogeneous depending on the use of moral rhetoric, and is large and statistically significant for candidates with above-median moral language use. A complementary design using only candidates with Twitter also reveals a causal effect of moral language on vote shares. We also document that relative to other social media features (negativity, out-group animosity, toxicity) moral rhetoric drives more positive engagement. Finally, we show that increased coverage from mainstream news media and campaign donations are important mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | social media, moral rhetoric, political behavior, elections |
| JEL: | D72 P0 L86 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12874 |
| By: | Aksoy, Cevat Giray; Eichengreen, Barry; Litina, Anastasia; Özgüzel, Cem; Yu, Chan |
| Abstract: | Scholars and politicians have expressed concern that immigrants from countries with low levels of political trust transfer those attitudes to their destination countries. Using large-scale survey data covering 38 countries and exploiting origin-country variation across different cohorts and survey rounds, we show that, to the contrary, immigrants more exposed to institutional corruption before migrating exhibit higher levels of political trust in their new country. Higher trust is observed for national political institutions only and does not carry over to other supra-national institutions and individuals. We report evidence that higher levels of political trust among immigrants persist, leading to greater electoral participation and political engagement in the long run. The impact of home-country corruption on political trust in the destination country is further amplified by large differences in levels of income and democracy between home and host countries, which serve to highlight the contrast in the two settings. It is lessened by exposure to media, a source of information about institutional quality. Finally, our extensive analyses indicate that self-selection into host countries based on trust is highly unlikely and the results hold even when focusing only on forced migrants who were unlikely to have been subject to selection. |
| Keywords: | Corruption; Institutions; Immigrants |
| JEL: | Z1 D73 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19775 |
| By: | Campa, Pamela; Saygin, Perihan; Tumen, Semih |
| Abstract: | How can women’s representation improve in countries that do not embrace legislated gender quotas? We study municipal elections in Turkey during 2009-2019. A conservative dominant party, Erdogan’s AKP, is often challenged by a Kurdish party that promotes gender equality in electoral lists. Exploiting within-municipality variation, we find that the Kurdish party winning leads AKP to increase its share of female candidates by 25 to 30% in the next election. Other opposition parties winning has a substantially lower impact. Our results suggest that one party empowering women can help reducing gender gaps in lists across-the-board. |
| Keywords: | Electoral competition |
| JEL: | D72 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19700 |
| By: | Conconi, Paola; Cucu, Florin; Gallina, Federico; Nardotto, Mattia |
| Abstract: | We study votes of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on the approval of free trade agreements (FTAs). Against widespread Eurosceptic arguments, we find that MEPs are responsive to the interests of their electorate and their re-election chances increase with the extent to which their votes on trade agreements are aligned with their constituents’ interests. By contrast, US legislators’ votes on FTAs are disconnected from their electorate’s interests and do not impact their re-election chances. Our results suggest that legislators’ accountability on a policy issue may depend on its salience relative to other policies in the legislators’ sphere of competence. |
| Keywords: | Electoral accountability; Trade agreements; EU and US legislation |
| JEL: | F13 D72 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19609 |
| By: | Britto, Diogo; Daniele, Gianmarco; Pinotti, Paolo; Le Moglie, Marco; Sampaio, Breno |
| Abstract: | We study the prevalence and effects of individuals with past criminal charges among candidates and elected politicians in Brazil. Individuals with past criminal charges are twice as likely to both run for office and be elected compared to other individuals. This pattern persists across political parties and government levels, even when controlling for a broad set of observable characteristics. Randomized anti-corruption audits reduce the share of mayors with criminal records, but only when conducted in election years. Using a regression discontinuity design focusing on close elections, we demonstrate that the election of mayors with criminal backgrounds leads to higher rates of underweight births and infant mortality. Additionally, there is an increase in political patronage, particularly in the health sector, which is consistent with the negative impacts on local public health outcomes. |
| JEL: | K42 J45 P16 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19650 |
| By: | Aman Ray; Srikanth Pai (Assistant Professor, Madras School of Economics, Chennai, India.) |
| Abstract: | We study a two-party spatial competition model that extends the Hotelling–Downs framework by allowing voter abstention. Voters share a common voting window size and participate only if at least one party lies within that window. Parties choose policy positions to maximize their vote-share margin. We show that if a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium exists, both parties must choose the same policy position that generalizes the median voter principle. In the classical model, the median splits the total electorate into two equal halves; here, the equilibrium position must split the participating voters within a fixed voting window into two equal parts. We then give necessary and sufficient conditions on the voter distribution for the existence of pure-strategy Nash equilibria. We identify broad classes of voter distributions under which pure-strategy equilibria exist.Length: 20 pages |
| Keywords: | Spatial competition · Abstention · Median voter theorem Nash equilibriumClassification-JEL: |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2026-306 |
| By: | Kodjovi M. Eklou |
| Abstract: | Exchange rate movements have implications for the purchasing power of residents or voters. Given that the exchange rate is often seen as a barometer of government performance, there could be strong incentives to influence exchange rate valuation during elections. This paper investigates whether political economy factors affect Foreign Exchange Intervention (FXI) policy across countries. It investigates whether central banks tend to implement FX sales, leaning against depreciations, during electoral periods in a sample of 28 countries including both advanced (AEs) and emerging (EMs) economies over the period 2000-2019. The results show that EMs with competitive elections tend to implement more and larger FX sales in pre-electoral period, compared to post-election period, given their political popularity. Further, this result is driven by countries where political pressures on central bank governors are more prevalent. Furthermore, the paper also finds that monetary policy transparency has the potential to mitigate this politically driven FXI during electoral period. Finally, the paper discusses policy implications given that politically motivated FX sales could hamper the ability of central banks to effectively respond to large shocks. |
| Keywords: | Foreign Exchange Interventions; Electoral Cycles; Monetary Policy; Political Economy; Transparency. |
| Date: | 2026–06–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2026/130 |
| By: | Calvo, Richard; Pons, Vincent; Shapiro, Jesse |
| Abstract: | Many influential observers have forecast large partisan shifts in the US electorate based on demographic trends. Such forecasts are appealing because demographic trends are often predictable even over long horizons. We backtest demographic forecasts using data on US elections since 1952. We envision a forecaster who fits a model using data from a given election and uses that model, in tandem with a projection of demographic trends, to predict future elections. Even a forecaster with perfect knowledge of future demographic trends would have performed poorly over this period—worse even than one who simply guesses that each election will have a 50-50 partisan split. Enriching the set of demographics available does not change this conclusion. Slow demographic change, unstable group preferences, and strategic party responses all help to explain why demography has not been destiny in US politics. |
| JEL: | D72 J11 C53 P00 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19564 |
| By: | Chernov, Mikhail; Elenev, Vadim; Song, Dongho |
| Abstract: | We propose a novel time-series econometric framework to forecast U.S. Presidential election outcomes in real time by combining polling data, economic fundamentals, and political prediction market prices. Our model estimates the joint dynamics of voter preferences across states. Applying our approach to the 2024 Presidential Election, we find a two-factor structure driving the vast majority of the variation in voter preferences. We identify electorally similar state clusters without relying on historical data or demographic models of voter behavior. Our simulations quantify the correlations between state-level election outcomes. Failing to take the correlations into account can bias the forecasted win probability for a given candidate by more than 10 percentage points. We find Pennsylvania to be the most pivotal state in the 2024 election. Our results provide insights for election observers, candidates, and traders. |
| JEL: | C32 C53 D72 P00 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19836 |
| By: | Zhang, Lehan; Gratton, Gabriele; Grosjean, Pauline; Yousaf, Hasin |
| Abstract: | We show how politicians polarize policy-relevant public debates. Analyzing 4.75 million tweets about 57 mass shootings events (2016-2022) with two-way fixed effects and event studies methodologies, we show that the partisan and tribal content of tweets---our measure of online polarization---systematically increases after a politician first tweets about an event. Our detailed analysis of the timing of political interventions suggests that politicians do not intervene in response to specific characteristics of the debate or the event, nor to immediate changes in the debate. Interventions by other (not politicians) focal influencers do not polarize the public debate. We show how the rhetorical supply of politicians explains the unique polarizing effect of political interventions. |
| Keywords: | Twitter; Partisanship; Polarization |
| JEL: | D83 L86 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19896 |
| By: | Maria Carreri; Davide Cipullo; Marco Le Moglie; Alberto Perego |
| Abstract: | Local governments promise democratic responsiveness but are also vulnerable to political capture by illicit actors. While existing research documents the political and economic consequences of capture, less is known about how bureaucrats respond when political leadership is captured — whether they become instruments of corrupt rule or resist it. We examine these competing expectations in the context of Italian municipalities infiltrated by mafia organizations. Leveraging a law that allows the central government to dissolve captured municipal councils, we study how bureaucratic performance responds when political capture is abruptly removed. Using a difference-in-differences design with matched controls based on a machine-learning index of mafia-infiltration risk, we show that dissolutions substantially improve bureaucratic performance. Evidence from administrative data and investigative reports supports the interpretation that the lower performance during mafia rule was driven by bureaucrats resisting political capture. Our findings show that bureaucracies mitigate, rather than amplify, the downstream consequences of political capture. |
| Keywords: | political capture, bureaucratic performance, organized crime, state capacity |
| JEL: | D73 H70 K42 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12861 |
| By: | Muringani, Jonathan; Fitjar, Rune; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the complex relationship between political and social trust, government quality, and economic development across 208 regions in the European Union (EU). We use a pooled data generalized structural equation model (GSEM) to show that political trust serves as a fundamental driver of regional economic development in the EU. Political trust is, in turn, influenced by both social trust and government quality. Social trust and government quality have quadratic effects on political trust, showing diminishing returns, while the effect of political trust on economic development is linear. Political trust mediates the relationship between social trust and economic development entirely, while government quality retains a direct relationship with economic development. These findings underscore the fundamental role that political trust plays as a mechanism through which both formal and informal institutions shape regional development. |
| JEL: | O43 R11 H11 D73 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19622 |
| By: | Fierro, Pedro; Rivera, Sebastian; Brieba, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Recent research indicates the existence of ‘places that don’t matter’, where residents harbour feelings of abandonment, prompting a tilt towards anti-system narratives. Yet, the effects of territorial marginalisation extend beyond voting behaviour, influencing deeper underlying factors. Utilising data from 9924 cases in the region of Valparaiso in Chile, this study reveals that living in politically marginalised cities in contexts of high political centralisation correlates with reduced political knowledge and internal political efficacy, even when accounting for other sociodemographic characteristics. By focusing on territorial marginalisation, this analysis offers a fresh perspective on the interplay between individual sociodemographic characteristics and political engagement. |
| Keywords: | geography of discontent;political efficacy;political knowledge;territorial inequalities |
| JEL: | R12 R23 D63 N36 |
| Date: | 2026–01–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127088 |
| By: | Lall, Ranjit (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | While advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are feared to bring about widespread job losses, workers highly exposed to the technology tend to anticipate productivity-driven improvements in their earnings and employment prospects. I argue that this paradox has important political economy implications: if labor complementarities are expected to outweigh substitution effects—raising income without commensurately intensifying employment risks—exposure to AI should weaken rather than strengthen support for redistributive policies and their political advocates. I test this argument using a combination of observational and original experimental data from Western Europe, finding that occupation-level AI exposure is negatively associated with support for redistribution, the left, and the (increasingly pro-welfare) populist right but positively associated with support for the mainstream right. The results enhance our understanding of the political economy of digitalization, suggesting a discrepancy between the perceived distributional consequences of AI and earlier automation technologies that have primarily displaced labor. |
| Date: | 2026–07–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vmgdj_v1 |
| By: | Koch, Dennis Maximilian |
| Abstract: | Corporate finance increasingly operates in a world shaped by sustainability imperatives, political polarization, and external governance pressures. Yet, the interaction between these forces and firm financial outcomes remains insufficiently understood. This dissertation investigates these interactions in four empirical studies linking corporate finance with political preferences, corporate sustainability, and governance shocks. The first study examines activism by hedge fund investors as an external governance intervention and investigates its interplay with target firms’ environmental and social performance (ESP). We hypothesize that these investors are value-driven and show that they remain largely indifferent to firms’ ESP when selecting targets. However, hedge fund engagements slow firms’ sustainability trajectories through managerial attention shifts and financial constraints. This study highlights the adverse stakeholder consequences of an influential investor group. The second study analyzes the 2024 U.S. presidential election as a policy shock and explores how investors revalue firms based on their exposure to green business models. We document that firms with higher green revenue share experienced negative stock price reactions. This negative effect is considerably stronger for firms in Democratic-leaning states than those in Republican-leaning states, implying that markets anticipate a non-uniform policy impact under the new administration. This study illustrates the policy risk of green firms under political polarization. The third study also centers on the U.S. election and explores how CEO political donations influence their companies’ post-election stock price movements. We find that CEO personal alignment with the winning Republican party leads to significant post-election stock price gains, while support for the Democratic party is associated with value losses. This study emphasizes investors’ heightened sensitivity to executive political loyalty in a highly polarized environment. The fourth study investigates how CEO political preferences shape equity pricing over the long run. Firms led by Republican-leaning CEOs exhibit significantly higher expected returns, explained by reduced investor attention and valuation. This study reveals that managerial political preferences persistently affect market perception and asset pricing. Taken together, this research reveals how political preferences, sustainability commitments, and governance shocks jointly shape corporate outcomes. This dissertation contributes to the literatures on corporate finance, political economy, and sustainability while offering relevant implications for executives, investors, and policymakers facing rising political and environmental uncertainty. |
| Date: | 2026–04–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dar:wpaper:160877 |
| By: | Leandro De Magalhães; Anna Brian |
| Abstract: | Using newly digitized election results and a name-matching algorithm that tracks individual candidates across elections, we provide the first systematic estimates of the effect of winning a legislative seat on re-running in the next election across 17 African countries and 86 elections (1963–2024). Getting back on the ballot is the first gate to re-election. Incumbent re-running rates average 47%, turnover averages around 70%, and barely winning raises the probability of re-running by a median of 21 percentage points and of winning the next election by only 9—far below the US and the UK, where re-running is near-universal, turnover is far lower, and incumbency effects on re-running and winning are far larger. We look at country specific academic literature, news sources, cross-country comparisons of indexes of parliamentary power, and text analysis of Hansard parliamentary activity to study the mechanism through which re-running is determined. The results are mostly consistent with re-running suppression by the executive. Monitoring incumbent re-nomination rates may help evaluate elections before a single ballot is cast. |
| Date: | 2026–01–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:26/842 |
| By: | Carattini, Stefano; Chatterjee, Anomitro; Cherry, Todd |
| Abstract: | Biased beliefs affect real-world decisions, including political solutions to societal challenges. One crucial example is environmental policy: people tend to underestimate the incentive effect of Pigouvian policies. Addressing biased beliefs at scale is then paramount. In the days leading up to a ballot initiative in Washington state, we implemented a large-scale field experiment providing information on carbon taxes to over 285, 000 individuals. We complemented it with a survey experiment of about 1, 000 individuals, with the same treatments as in the field experiment, shedding light on social desirability bias and mechanisms around belief revision. Using data at the voting precinct level, we show that our intervention increases revealed support for carbon taxes, mainly for a treatment centered around earmarking of tax revenue, which was one of the design features of the ballot initiative. We find the effect to be stronger in precincts relatively opposed to the initiative, and less exposed to media coverage of carbon taxes, and more exposed to coverage challenging their effectiveness. |
| Keywords: | Carbon taxes; Voting behavior; Facebook ads; Natural field experiments |
| JEL: | C93 D72 D82 H23 Q54 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19850 |
| By: | Toshihiro Okubo; Ilan Noy |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how identity shapes trade policy attitudes and electoral behavior during periods of geopolitical trade conflict. Using the Okubo-NIRA panel survey of Japanese workers, we study electoral preference updating around two major shocks: the April 2025 U.S. tariff shock and the November 2025 China-Taiwan shock. We argue that workers might evaluate trade policy not only as individuals or as Japanese but also through their attachment to the firms that employ them and to those firms' interests. This channel is salient for workers in internationally exposed firms - i.e., those that are directly affected by tariffs, supply-chain disruption, and economic-security concerns. Using individual fixed effects and instrumental-variable specifications based on workers' pride in their employer and its interaction with international exposure, we show that firm pride predicts changes in concrete tariff attitudes, which in turn are associated with shifts in party support. Interestingly, our results distinguish general support for free trade as a policy principle from tariff preferences contingent on geopolitical trade conflicts. Our findings suggest that geopolitical trade shocks shape political preferences through the identities of workers tied to their export-exposed employing firms. |
| Keywords: | trade, preferences, identity, pride |
| JEL: | F13 F51 P45 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12903 |
| By: | Braghieri, Luca; Eichmeyer, Sarah |
| Abstract: | Can teaching the history of authoritarian regimes built on extreme ideology lastingly reduce support for those ideologies? We leverage a natural experiment in Germany where the senior high school history curriculum exogenously alternated covering, across cohorts, the communist German Democratic Republic and fascist Nazi Germany. Data collected a decade post-graduation reveals that studying the GDR rather than the Nazi regime increases knowledge about the GDR and reduces support for extreme left-wing ideology. The treatment does not increase support for extreme right-wing ideology on average, but does so in more right-leaning regions, highlighting substitutabilities of the production function of extreme ideology. |
| Keywords: | Education; Political ideology; History; Schooling curricula |
| JEL: | P00 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19575 |
| By: | Audi-Poquillon, Zilper |
| Abstract: | Why do some ambitious social health insurance reforms get enacted, while others stall, even within the same country, and under similar structural constraints? This article compares Kenya’s failed 2004 National Social Health Insurance Fund Bill, with the reform enacted in 2023. It combines Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) with political economy and populism theory, drawing on 48 elite interviews, and policy documents. Using outcome-explaining process tracing, the study explains why enactment became possible in 2023 but not 2004. MSA highlights how adoption depends on coupling across problem, policy and politics streams. Kenya’s case shows that in executive-dominant presidential systems, leaders can also make this coupling happen. Three mechanisms distinguished the 2023 episode: (i) executive dominance and institutional bypass, that compressed procedures and reduced veto points, (ii) elite re-alignment including a fiscal gatekeeper buy-in, which ensured a supportive political settlement, and (iii) populist strategy that moralised inequities, delegitimised opponents and justified expedited enactment. In 2004, the reform faced executive and elite fragmentation, which enabled organised resistance and presidential veto. By integrating MSA with political economy and populism theory, this study conceptualises populism as a coupling mechanism that can align streams by reshaping political feasibility and coalition incentives. Empirically, it provides a rare within-country comparison of health financing reform enactment in an LMIC, clarifying how power, elite bargains, and political strategies shape whether redistributive reforms become law. While these three mechanisms helped ensure the reform’s enactment, they however risk limiting the reform’s ability to increase coverage, specifically for the informal sector populations that it aimed at serving. |
| Keywords: | political economy;populism;health financing;social health insurance;universal health coverage;veto points;multiple streams approach;Kenya |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2026–07–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140165 |
| By: | Boone, Catherine; Mugisha, Michael Buteera |
| Abstract: | Even after economic liberalization in the 1990s, the role of the state in Africa’s traditional tropical commodity export sectors has remained extensive. This paper argues that post-liberalization, these patterns of state regulation have often been shaped by the pressures and incentives of partisan politics, just as they were in earlier decades. We compare and contrast the changing institutional structure and patterns of state regulation in four agricultural commodity export sectors: Côte d'Ivoire-cocoa, Ghana-cocoa, Kenya-coffee, and Uganda-coffee. In spite of important differences, all four sectors are critical in providing resources, organizational structure, and policy mechanisms for building and maintaining electoral and other forms of political support for historically powerful political parties and/or power contenders. Post-1990s, each of the four cases presents an alternative pattern of alignment between export-sector organizations and partisan politics. Comparison across cases reveals the depth and variety of the ways in which domestic politics in African countries, including electoral politics, can shape state intervention in commodity chains for agro-exports, even in the neoliberal era. One implication for development studies is that domestic political and partisan dynamics are likely to continue to influence how governments use their “policy space” in supply chain governance in the future. |
| Keywords: | Africa;party politics;export commodites;Kenya;Uganda;Cote d'Ivoire |
| JEL: | N0 L81 |
| Date: | 2026–11–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140307 |
| By: | Saka, Orkun; Ji, Yuemei; Minaudier, Clement |
| Abstract: | We show that politicians facing a binding term limit are more likely to engage in financial deliberalization than those facing reelection, but only in the wake of a financial crisis. In particular, they implement policies that tend to favor incumbent financial institutions over the general population, such as increasing barriers to entry in the banking sector. We propose a conceptual framework and several mechanisms to rationalize this behavior and show that revolving doors between the government and the financial sector play a key role in encouraging bank-friendly policies after crises. |
| Keywords: | democracies;financial crises;political accountability;special-interest groups;term limits |
| JEL: | J1 E6 |
| Date: | 2026–07–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140385 |
| By: | Jänicke, Christin; Gunzelmann, Hans Jonas; Völker, Teresa Sophie; Hutter, Swen |
| Abstract: | The rise of the far right in the 21st century poses fundamental challenges for democracy. In this context, understanding how democratic societies respond to the far right is a crucial question. This question concerns not only politicians from democratic parties, but also civil society actors ranging from large trade unions to local sports clubs and grassroots initiatives. However, the existing scholarly work on societal responses to the far right remains scattered across subdisciplines, addresses a narrow range of questions, and focuses on specific segments of civil society only. We address this gap by synthesizing these literatures and providing an analytical framework of civil society strategies against the far right. We conduct a systematic review of 56 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters published between 1972 and 2024, which forms the core of the analysis. We complement this review with a qualitative content analysis of 191 guidance documents from 42 German civil society organizations across nine organizational fields to capture strategies that are less visible in the academic literature. Our analysis identifies five types of civil society strategy: contentious, public-sphere, cultural and educational, networking, and organizational strategies. It shows that the academic literature is heavily skewed toward contentious action, whereas organizational and networking strategies play a central role in practice but remain largely understudied. At the same time, the evidence on effectiveness is limited and unevenly distributed across strategy types, highlighting important gaps in comparative and cross-national research. By integrating scholarly and practitioner knowledge, the study provides a comprehensive overview of civil society strategies against the far right and outlines a research agenda for more systematic analysis of their effects. |
| Keywords: | Civil Society, Contentious Politics, Counterstrategies, Democratic Resilience, Far Right |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbccs:342560 |