Electoral bias and policy choice: theory and evidence

Timothy Besley and Ian Preston

No W06/03, IFS Working Papers from Institute for Fiscal Studies

Abstract: This paper develops a new approach to study how electoral bias in favor of one party due to the pattern of districting affects policy choice. We tie a commonly used measure of districting bias to the theory of party competition and show how this affects policy choice in theory. The utility of the approach is illustrated using data on local government in the U.K. The results suggest that reducing electoral bias leads parties to moderate their policies.

Pages: 41 pp.
Date: 2006-01-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp0603.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp0603.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp0603.pdf [302 Found]--> https://ifs.org.uk/wps/wp0603.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Electoral Bias and Policy Choice: Theory and Evidence (2007)
Working Paper: Electoral bias and policy choice: theory and evidence (2007)
Working Paper: Electoral Bias and Policy Choice:Theory and Evidence (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:06/03

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IFS Working Papers from Institute for Fiscal Studies The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emma Hyman ().