Incumbency Effects in a Comparative Perspective: Evidence from Brazilian Mayoral Elections

Leandro de Magalhaes

Bristol Economics Discussion Papers from School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK

Abstract: High rerunning rates among incumbents and among the two major parties, allow studies of US incumbency advantage to bypass the selection problem of who chooses to rerun. In countries where rerunning is not widespread among individuals or parties, estimation using methods developed for the US may result in a sample selection bias. In countries with party switching, there may be a disconnect between party and individual estimates. This paper proposes a definition of incumbency advantage that is valid for countries that present any of these characteristics and that is valid for cross-country comparison: the effect of incumbency for an individual politician on the unconditional probability of winning. I illustrate the issues raised in this paper with evidence from Brazilian Mayoral elections.

Keywords: Incumbency Advantage; Political Careers; Regression Discontinuity Design; Mayors; Brazil. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 D72 J00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2014-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Incumbency Effects in a Comparative Perspective: Evidence from Brazilian Mayoral Elections (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bri:uobdis:14/643

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