Competition, benchmarking, and electoral success: Evidence from 69 years of the German Bundestag

Marco Frank and David Stadelmann

European Journal of Political Economy, 2023, vol. 77, issue C

Abstract: The German electoral system ensures that there is always at least one federal legislator per constituency. This legislator can face competition from additionally elected competitors to the Bundestag from precisely the same constituency. The existence of several legislators per constituency allows voters to benchmark their quality against each other. We analyze the causal impact of having more elected competitors from the same constituency on legislators’ personal success versus the success of their parties. Our data cover the legislative terms in the German Bundestag and federal elections in the period 1953–2021. In our analysis, we rely on exogenous variation in elected competitors by investigating changes induced by legislators who leave the Bundestag during the legislative period and their respective replacement candidates as instrumental variables. We find that legislators are less successful in elections when they are exposed to elected competitors from the same constituency. The results suggest that benchmarking possibilities are relevant for voters to evaluate their representatives.

Keywords: Political competition; Electoral success; Split ticket voting; Elections; Political representation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 H11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:77:y:2023:i:c:s017626802200074x

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2022.102274

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