Do politicians shirk when reelection is certain? Evidence from the German parliament

Andreas Bernecker

European Journal of Political Economy, 2014, vol. 36, issue C, 55-70

Abstract: Does stiffer electoral competition reduce political shirking? For a micro-analysis of this question, I construct a new data set spanning the years 2005 to 2012 covering biographical and political information about German Members of Parliament (MPs), including their attendance rates in voting sessions. For the parliament elected in 2009, I show that indeed opposition party MPs who expect to face a close race in their district show significantly and relevantly lower absence rates in parliament beforehand. MPs of governing parties seem not to react significantly to electoral competition. These results are confirmed by an analysis of the parliament elected in 2005, by several robustness checks, and also by employing an instrumental variable strategy exploiting convenient peculiarities of the German electoral system. The study also shows how MPs elected via party lists react to different levels of electoral competition.

Keywords: Accountability; Political competition; Quality of politicians; Shirking; Absences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 H11 H75 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:36:y:2014:i:c:p:55-70

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2014.07.001

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