A large theoretical and empirical literature explores whether politicians and political parties change their policy … attitudes on important policy issues? Problems of reverse causality and omitted variable bias make this a difficult question to … municipal election districts. To identify causal effects, we take advantage of large nonlinearities in the function which …

intensely about. We develop a model in which office and policy motivated politicians choose to support or oppose regulations on … these issues. We derive conditions under which politicians flip-flop, voting according to their policy preferences at the … beginning of their terms, but in line with the preferences of single-issue minorities as they approach re-election. To assess …

We ask three questions. First, do election systems differ in how they translate physical attractiveness of candidates … German election system that combines first-past-the-post election with party-list proportional representation, our results …

the legislature: the identity of the party that previously held a majority, and the probability density of the election …

We ask three questions. First, do election systems differ in how they translate physical attractiveness of candidates … German election system that combines first-past-the-post election with party-list proportional representation, our results …

appointed by an elected body. Our identification strategy exploits a natural experiment provided by the introduction in 2005 of …

economic decision-making – is important in politics. We show that politicians ‘gamble for re-election’ in the context of a … on MPs’ individual decisions in a de facto vote for the 2021 leadership election of Germany’s centre-right parties. MPs … are more likely to vote for a riskier candidate when faced with tougher re-election races in their constituency …

-list proportional election system. One more councilor employed by the public sector increases spending by about one percent. The effect … consistent with public employees having an information advantage over other politicians, and thus, being able to influence policy …

the legislature: the identity of the party that previously held a majority, and the probability density of the election …