Divided government versus incumbency externality effect—Quasi-experimental evidence on multiple voting decisions

Florian Ade and Ronny Freier

European Economic Review, 2013, vol. 64, issue C, 1-20

Abstract: This paper explores the causal relationship between vote outcomes in different elections. We ask: (1) Does the partisan identity of the mayor influence the voter's decision in subsequent town council elections? (2) Do voters condition their vote for the mayor on the result of the last council election? The analysis mainProd. Type: FLPly relies on a regression discontinuity design focusing on close election outcomes based on municipal level data for Germany. We find that the party of the mayor can receive a significant bonus in the next town council election. Moreover, voters punish mayor candidates of parties that performed strongly in earlier council elections. Throughout the paper, we highlight how these findings can be related to an incumbency externality effect and to the theory of divided government.

Keywords: Regression discontinuity design; Municipality data; Local election results; Divided government effect; Incumbency externality effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H10 H11 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:64:y:2013:i:c:p:1-20

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2013.07.002

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