Based on an extended welfare chauvinism concept that more systematically integrates the labor market and public finance aspects, this paper examines the impact of the refugee crisis − which culminated in the EU in 2015/16 − on changes in voting behavior in Germany (revealed in the two German...

As immigration to Europe has increased, so has support for extremist parties. While many studies have examined the effect of immigration on election outcomes, few have probed the effect of asylum seekers – those fleeing strife and persecution – on voting, nor has there been much research on...

Drawing on panel data from six elections between 1998 and 2017 in Germany, we estimate the causal effect of immigration – described by Germany’s interior minister as the "mother of all political problems" – on electoral support for the far right and the far left. Our identification...

Over 150 countries allow expatriate citizens to vote in their country of origin. Yet, little is known about their voting behavior and how this is affected by host countries. Using unique micro-data on Chilean expatriates living in Europe, we study how the host country's turnout affects...

Although pre-electoral political manipulation of the budget --- the political budget cycle (PBC) --- has been long investigated by scholars, empirical findings are mixed at best. This is partly because of the non-random nature of election timing. There also exist ongoing debates over how the...

We use new annual data on gasoline taxes and corporate income taxes from U.S. states to analyze whether politicians avoid tax increases in election years. These data contain 3 useful attributes: (1) when state politicians enact tax laws, (2) when state politicians implement tax laws on consumers...

Ramanna and Roychowdhury (2010) advance two interesting questions about the determinants of accounting discretion: Do firms use accounting discretion to mitigate the potential economic consequences of negative publicity? And, do firms’ political connections provide an additional motivation to...

Last June’s European Parliament (“EP”) election was widely considered a failure. Turnout was low across Europe, and, as has been the case in every EP election since they were introduced in 1979, voters responded exclusively to domestic cues in deciding how to fill the European Union’s...

In this paper we test the impact of elections on fiscal policy in Latin American economies in comparison to OECD countries over the period 1990-2006. We find that in Latin American countries, the average primary balance declines by an amount close to 0.7 per cent of GDP during an election year,...

Incumbency advantage is a well known phenomenon in developed countries such as the US. Recent work on Brazil and India has suggested that incumbents are disadvantaged when seeking reelection in developing countries. Most of the research on developing countries has focused on estimating...