Just Hire your Spouse! Evidence from a Political Scandal in Bavaria

Björn Kauder and Niklas Potrafke

No 4813, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We investigate a case of political favoritism. Some members of the Bavarian parliament hired relatives as office employees who were paid using taxpayers’ money. We examine whether being involved in the scandal influenced re-election prospects and voter turnout. The results do not show that being involved in the scandal influenced the outcome and voter turnout of the 2013 state elections. We propose three explanations: (i) the Bavarian state election was a test run for the German federal election; (ii) the state government made a quite good job of clarifying failings; (iii) in June 2013, a very heavy bout of flooding eclipsed the political scandal.

Keywords: political scandal; favoritism; nepotism; re-election prospects; voter turnout (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 D72 H70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Just hire your spouse! Evidence from a political scandal in Bavaria (2015)
Working Paper: Just hire your spouse! Evidence from a political scandal in Bavaria (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_4813

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