Political Selection When Uncertainty Is High

Thushyanthan Baskaran, Zohal Hessami and Temurbek Khasanboev ()

No 15509, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Do voters place their trust in tried and tested leaders when uncertainty is high or do they prefer a new slate of leaders who are arguably more competent? To study this question, we make use of hand-collected data on 402,385 candidates who competed in open-list local council elections (1996-2020) in Bavaria. The 2020 elections took place at the dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic, a time of high uncertainty about the future course of events. Using local heterogeneity in Covid-19 outbreaks and related school/daycare closures to proxy the degree of perceived uncertainty across Bavarian municipalities, we show with a difference-in-differences design that councilors' incumbency advantage declined more in exposed municipalities. This decrease in the incumbency advantage is limited to male and non- university educated incumbents, resulting in shifted patterns of political selection. Overall, we conclude that voters select more competent politicians when they face uncertainty about the future.

Keywords: political selection; council elections; incumbency; Bavaria; COVID-19; uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 H70 J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2022-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-lab and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Kyklos, 2023, 145, 76 (2), 161-178

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