The mayor's advantage: Causal evidence on incumbency effects in German mayoral elections

Ronny Freier

European Journal of Political Economy, 2015, vol. 40, issue PA, 16-30

Abstract: This paper provides empirical evidence on the party incumbency advantage in mayoral elections in Germany. Using a regression discontinuity design on a data set of about 25,000 elections, I estimate a causal incumbency effect of 38–40 percentage points in the probability of winning the next election. Studying the mechanisms behind this effect, I show that the electoral advantage is larger for full-time mayors, increasing in municipality size, independent of the specific partisanship of the mayor and constant between 1945 and 2010. Moreover, it increases with local spending hikes and it is independent of municipal debt.

Keywords: Mayoral elections; Regression discontinuity design; Party incumbency advantage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H10 H11 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:40:y:2015:i:pa:p:16-30

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.07.005

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