 Rank effects in political promotionsJaakko Meriläinen () and Janne Tukiainen Public Choice, 2018, vol. 177, issue 1, No 5, 87-109 Abstract: Abstract This paper studies the effect of candidates’ personal vote ranks on promotions to political power in an open list proportional representation system. Using a regression discontinuity design and data from Finnish local elections, we find that ranking first within a party enhances a politician’s chances of getting promoted to the position of a municipal board chair, the most important task in Finnish local politics. Other ranks matter less. We document that the effect of ranking first is larger when there is less within-party competition, but the role of external competition is ambiguous. Our evidence suggests that the mechanism behind the rank effects is primarily unrelated to electoral incentives but rather to party-specific norms or political culture. Ranks seem to be, however, only a complement to other promotion criteria such as politicians’ previous political experience or how close to the party lines their policy positions stand. Keywords: Open list PR; Political promotions; Preference votes; Rank effects; Regression discontinuity design (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:177:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-018-0591-8 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/s11127-018-0591-8 Access Statistics for this article Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II More articles in Public Choice from Springer |
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