In parliament, individual representatives vote with a certain probability according to their constituents’ preferences. Thus, the mechanism of the Condorcet Jury Theorem can be fruitfully applied to parliamentary representation: The probability that a majority of representatives votes...

We match individual senators’ voting behavior on legislative proposals with 24 real referenda decisions on exactly the same issues with identical wording. This setting allows us to evaluate the median voter model’s quality with revealed constituents’ preferences. Results...

We assess the effect of constituents’ preferences on legislators’ decisions within a quasiexperimental setting: In the Swiss referendum process, citizens and legislators reveal their preferences for legislative proposals. We match roll call votes of all Swiss legislators on 102...

We compare the votes of parliamentary representatives and their constituents on a popular initiative that directly aimed at weakening the separation of powers in 1922 in Switzerland. We analyze whether the strength of individual ties to the public service affect the probability of voting for the...

We identify the impact of transparency in political decision -making on the quality of political representation with a difference- in-difference strategy. The quality of political representation is measured by observed divergence of parliamentary decisions from revealed voter preferences on the...

Do politicians with a military background decide differently on military affairs? We investigate the informative institutional setting of the Swiss conscription army. Politicians who served in the military have a higher probability of accepting pro-military legislative proposals, even when...

We analyze political representation of preferences of different income groups by matching referendum outcomes for low, middle, and high-income voters with individual legislators' decisions on identical policy proposals. Results indicate that legislators more closely represent preferences of rich...

Electoral systems determine the role party affiliations play in political representation. According to conventional expectations, politicians’ party affiliations should influence political representation when they are elected by proportional representation. In contrast, majoritarian...

What determines political candidates? election prospects? We match roll call votes of candidates for the majority elected upper house of parliament who were previously in the lower house with revealed preferences of their constituency. Thereby, we obtain a direct measure of past congruence....

Members of parliament have more effective incentives to cater for the majority?s preferences when they are elected in districts with few seats in parliament rather than in districts with many seats. We empirically investigate this hypothesis by matching voting behavior on legislative proposals...