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The mayor's advantage: Causal evidence on incumbency effects in German mayoral elections

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  • Freier, Ronny

Abstract

This paper provides empirical evidence on the party incumbency advantage in mayoral elections in Germany. Using a regression discontinuity design on a data set of about 25,000 elections, I estimate a causal incumbency effect of 38–40 percentage points in the probability of winning the next election. Studying the mechanisms behind this effect, I show that the electoral advantage is larger for full-time mayors, increasing in municipality size, independent of the specific partisanship of the mayor and constant between 1945 and 2010. Moreover, it increases with local spending hikes and it is independent of municipal debt.

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  • Freier, Ronny, 2015. "The mayor's advantage: Causal evidence on incumbency effects in German mayoral elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 16-30.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:40:y:2015:i:pa:p:16-30
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.07.005
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    Cited by:

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    2. Baghdasaryan, Vardan & Iannantuoni, Giovanna & Maggian, Valeria, 2019. "Electoral fraud and voter turnout: An experimental study," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 203-219.
    3. Lara E., Bernardo & Toro M., Sergio, 2019. "Tactical distribution in local funding: The value of an aligned mayor," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 74-89.
    4. Bartnicki, Sławomir & Alimowski, Maciej & Górecki, Maciej A., 2022. "The anomalous electoral advantage: Evidence from over 17,000 mayoral candidacies in Poland," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Mauricio Villamizar‐Villegas & Freddy A. Pinzon‐Puerto & Maria Alejandra Ruiz‐Sanchez, 2022. "A comprehensive history of regression discontinuity designs: An empirical survey of the last 60 years," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1130-1178, September.
    6. Gomberg, Andrei & Gutiérrez, Emilio & López, Paulina & Vázquez, Alejandra, 2019. "Coattails and the forces that drive them: Evidence from Mexico," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 64-81.
    7. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp1262 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Frank Bohn, 2019. "Political budget cycles, incumbency advantage, and propaganda," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 43-70, March.
    9. Felix Arnold, 2018. "Turnout and Closeness: Evidence from 60 Years of Bavarian Mayoral Elections," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 120(2), pages 624-653, April.
    10. Ronny Freier & Sebastian Thomasius, 2016. "Voters prefer more qualified mayors, but does it matter for public finances? Evidence for Germany," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(5), pages 875-910, October.
    11. Ercio Andres Munoz, 2021. "Incumbency advantage, money, and campaigns: A note on some suggestive evidence from Chile," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1203-1211.
    12. Dirk Foremny & Ronny Freier & Marc-Daniel Moessinger & Mustafa Yeter, 2018. "Overlapping political budget cycles," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 177(1), pages 1-27, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mayoral elections; Regression discontinuity design; Party incumbency advantage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

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