This note presents some of the consequences due to the possibility of having early elections. First of all, elections, whether exogenously or endogenously determined, are relevant to challenge the well known neutrality principle of economic policies under rational expectations. Furthermore, in...

If voters do not perceive meaningful differences between parties and candidates, they tend to stay at home or choose by other factors like style or likability. This study examines whether including different kinds of information about the candidates on the ballot affects the satisfaction and...

The concept of electoral competition plays a central role in many subfields of political science, but no consensus exists on how to measure it. One key challenge is how to conceptualize and measure electoral competitiveness at the district level across alternative electoral systems. Recent...

Much has been written about politicians' preferences for electoral systems, yet little is known about the preferences of voters. In 1993, New Zealand had a binding electoral referendum on the same day as the general election where voters chose between keeping a single plurality system (First...

The role of electoral incentives vs. selection is ideally analyzed in a setting where the same legislators are selected to decide on policies under different electoral rules and where voter preferences on policies can be precisely measured. This is the first paper to look at such a situation....

Elections constitute the essential element of democracy, yet surprisingly little is known about their immediate consequences for individual well-being. Cross-country empirical evidence is particularly absent for the campaign period leading up to elections. While elections as a process allow...

We examine the two-candidate equilibria of the citizen-candidate model when the implemented policy arises from a compromise between the government and an unelected external power. We show that the equilibria of this model differ significantly from the original: the distance between the...

In the political science and public choice literature, it has been shown that candidates (i) deviate from their median voter based upon the primary election type, and (ii) are more likely to establish policy positions that deviate from the median voter when the voting system is characterized by...

In this paper we examine the impact of tax contracts as a novel institution on elections, policies, and welfare. We consider a political game in which three parties compete to form the government. Parties have policy preferences about the level of public-good provision and benefit from perks...