highly valued by the voters and thus increase the probability of winning the election. Voters can be rational or behavioral …. Our empirical analysis, which uses data from the 2013 National election in Italy---held under closed list proportional …

year preceding their re-election date. Moreover, disputes filed by the U.S. tend to target industries that are important to … swing states in the presidential election. To explain these regularities, we develop a theoretical model in which an … during the re-election campaign provides an advantage over the challenger, who cannot commit to file the dispute if elected …

, we eliminate a potential source of bias in production-function estimates and generate testable hypotheses on the forces …

', that is, expansionary monetary policy in election years. Third, we observe indications of `political budget cycles', or …