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The electoral migration cycle

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  • Revelli, Federico

Abstract

This paper proposes a new test of Tiebout sorting that relies on the exogenous time structure of recurrent local elections. The test is based on the idea that competitive elections represent periodic perturbations to the Tiebout equilibrium of local public good provision and allocation of households to communities, so that their schedule should affect the timing of households' sorting decisions. On the other hand, internal migration flows that have nothing to do with the demand for public goods over which localities vote recurrently ought to be orthogonal to the timing of elections in a reduced-form migration equation. I exploit the staggered schedule of mayoral elections in Italy to analyze migration, elections, and public budget data across several thousands of municipalities, and find evidence of a systematic influence of the electoral calendar on the timing of sorting decisions.

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  • Revelli, Federico, 2019. "The electoral migration cycle," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 461-482.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:59:y:2019:i:c:p:461-482
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2019.05.007
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    Cited by:

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    5. Liu, Wai-Man & Ngo, Phong, 2020. "Voting with your feet: Political competition and internal migration in the United States," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tiebout sorting; Local elections; Political budget cycle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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