Incumbency Advantage at Municipal Elections in Italy: A Quasi-Experimental Approach

Marco Alberto De Benedetto
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Marco Alberto De Benedetto: Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics, Birkbeck

No 1408, Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance from Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics

Abstract: We analyze the incumbency effect on a candidate’s electoral prospects using a large data set on Italian municipal elections held from 1993 to 2011. We apply a non-parametric Sharp Regression Discontinuity Design that compares candidates who barely win an election to those who barely lose, exploiting the fact that incumbency status changes discontinuously at the threshold of margin of victory of zero. We find that incumbents are more likely to win the competition compared to their challengers at the Italian municipal elections. The results are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies with excellent balance in observable characteristics. Also, the effect of interest seems to be larger in magnitude for municipalities located in the North of Italy compared to southern municipalities.

Keywords: Incumbency Status; Political Participation; Sharp RDD. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/15287 First version, 2014 (application/pdf)

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