This paper explores empirically the role of nomination procedures on political selection and the determinants for adopting contestable selection methods such as primaries. Using data from Latin American parties, I find evidence that political competition increases probability of primary...

In this paper, I provide an empirical and theoretical analysis on whether and how in-utero negative health shocks affect politicians' human capital and career and governance outcomes, using Chinese Great Famine (1959-1961) and Chinese city Party Secretaries as a case in point. Using a...

This paper examines the incentives for a party leader in office and for a parties' rank-and-file to replace a sitting member of parliament. As to the leader's decision, we show that the leader prefers to replace a critical member of parliament who votes against the leader's policy. A competent...

In federal countries, competence for policy matters is often shared between various levels of government. As only overall outcomes are observed, this might blur accountability by decreasing voters' ability to infer information about the performance of their leaders. In this article, we analyse...

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between the transparency of politics and the quality of politicians in a model of parties' political recruitment. We find that an increase in the transparency of politics reduces the average quality of the politicians a party recruits in equilibrium

Is politics a lucrative business? The question is approached in this paper, as one of few to quantify the monetary returns to holding political office in a typical developed democracy where parties are the main political actors. By applying a difference-in-difference setting with a carefully...

How do politicians react to a political earthquake? In this article, we study politicians' – rather than voters' – responses to the main political scandal in Italian recent history (Tangentopoli), and overcome endogeneity concerns by analysing the local implications of this national...

Is politics a lucrative business? The question is approached in this paper, as one of few to quantify the monetary returns to holding political office in a typical developed democracy where parties are the main political actors. By applying a difference-in-difference setting with a carefully...

We ask three questions. First, do election systems differ in how they translate physical attractiveness of candidates into electoral success? Second, do political parties strategically exploit the "beauty premium" when deciding on which candidates to nominate, and, third, do elected MPs use...

Politicians have multiple principals. We investigate the weights that politicians put on the revealed preferences of their constituents, special interest groups and party when deciding on legislative proposals. Preferences of constituents, special interest groups and parties are directly...