-ideological voters, who care about national and local policies, strongly prefer experts. We show that parties compete on good politicians … prediction. We find that politicians with higher ex-ante quality − as measured by years of schooling, previous market income, and …, the characteristics of politicians belonging to opposite parties converge to high-quality levels in close races …

We use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effect of election to political office on natural … election appear in the mid-1800s, and grow notably larger when we restrict the sample to later years. We also analyze …

politicians' quality is positively affected by their wage and apply a Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design relying on the fact …

How can we motivate good politicians those that will carry out policy that is responsive to citizens' preferences to …

subsequent election. This stems mainly from an increased probability that previous women candidates contest again, an important …This paper analyzes the effect of a woman's electoral victory on women's subsequent political participation. Using the … regression discontinuity afforded by close elections between women and men in India's state elections, we find that a woman …

Raising women's political participation leads to faster maternal mortality decline. We estimate that the introduction … of quotas for women in parliament results in a 9 to 12% decline in maternal mortality. In terms of mechanisms, it also … decline made feasible by the introduction of antibiotics was significantly greater in states that had longer exposure to women …

candidacy. Studying mechanisms, we find that women are likely held back by incompatibilities between family obligations and …

This paper estimates the causal impact of electing criminally accused politicians and their nature of criminality on ….3 percent increase in crime in districts, including crimes against women. The effect is more pronounced when the leaders are …