A large theoretical and empirical literature explores whether politicians and political parties change their policy … municipal election districts. To identify causal effects, we take advantage of large nonlinearities in the function which … assigns council seats, comparing otherwise similar elections where one party either barely wins or loses an additional seat …

In their pursuit of being elected, politicians might not provide their constituents with independent viewpoints, but …, "candor", can be sustained as equilibria. This means that the public's trust or distrust in politicians may be self …-fulfilling prophecies. Importantly, the more informed politicians are about public opinion, the more likely it is that populist behavior can …