, potential candidates compete in a contest to become their party's nominee. At the election stage, the nominated candidates … campaign by making non-binding promises to voters. Confirming the model's key predictions, we find in the experiment that …

-ideological voters, who care about national and local policies, strongly prefer experts. We show that parties compete on good politicians … prediction. We find that politicians with higher ex-ante quality - as measured by years of schooling, previous market income, and …, the characteristics of politicians belonging to opposite parties converge to high-quality levels in close races …

urban, more educated and relatively wealthier municipalities. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that politicians …

candidates by observing their pre-election behavior. Egoistic types may strategically imitate benevolent types in the pre-election … the public sector is effective. We analyze the role of institutions like investigative media and re-election and show that …

politicians' quality is positively affected by their wage and apply a Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design relying on the fact …

Members of parliament (MPs) often decide on their own salaries. Voters dislike self-serving politicians, and … politicians are keen to gratify their voters. In line with the political business cycle theories, politicians thus may well delay … increased by one percent. Politicians can increase their salaries at any point of time in the legislative period: understanding …

election day affect turnout differentially depending on the closeness of the race. …

-ideological voters, who care about national and local policies, strongly prefer experts. We show that parties compete on good politicians … prediction. We find that politicians with higher ex-ante quality − as measured by years of schooling, previous market income, and …, the characteristics of politicians belonging to opposite parties converge to high-quality levels in close races …

dataset of attacks directed towards Italian local politicians to study how (and why) criminal organizations use violence … outcome and ii) after elections, to influence politicians from the beginning of their term. We provide causal evidence in … favor of the latter hypothesis. The probability of being a target of violence increases in the weeks right after an election …