The Impact of Incumbency on Turnout: Evidence from Italian Municipalities

Marco Alberto De Benedetto () and Maria De Paola ()
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Marco Alberto De Benedetto: University of Calabria

No 7612, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We analyze how having an incumbent among candidates affects electoral turnout. We use a rich data set providing information on the electoral results of Italian municipal elections over the period 1993-2011. Endogeneity issues are handled through an instrumental variable approach using the mayor term-limit as an instrument for the presence of the incumbent mayor among candidates. Controlling for electoral competition, we find that the impact of incumbency is heterogeneous across geographical areas: incumbency increases turnout in the South of Italy, whereas we do not find any statistically significant effect in the North. As the positive effect holds true only for southern municipalities endowed with low levels of social capital we speculate that this is the result of incumbent politicians using their resources to establish clienteles.

Keywords: electoral turnout; political participation; incumbency; social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 J16 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2013-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Electoral Studies, 2016, 44, 98-108

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