Do incumbents in an election have an advantage, and if so, are these advantages heterogeneous across parties or …

condition their vote for the mayor on the result of the last council election? We collected a unique data set for Germany in … town council election?; (2) Does this partisan identity influence in ensuing higher level elections?; and (3) Do voters … which we link election results for different political institutions at the municipal level. To identify causal effects, we …

close election outcomes based on municipal level data for Germany. We find (1) that the party of the mayor can receive a … interested in: (1) Does the partisan identity of the mayor influence the voter's decision in the subsequent town council election … vote for the mayor on the result of the last council election? We rely on a regression discontinuity design focusing on …

uncertain prospects of re-election, find it optimal to follow relatively shortsighted fiscal policies, and that this lowers … economic growth. The model is estimated using quarterly data for Germany, the UK and the US from 1960 to 1999. Our econometric …