Electoral Turnovers

Series

Micro Seminars
Speaker(s)

Vincent Pons (Harvard University, United States)
Field

Empirical Microeconomics, Organizations and Markets

Location

Online
Date and time

December 09, 2022
15:30 - 16:30

Abstract: In most national elections, voters face a key choice between continuity and change. Electoral turnovers occur when the incumbent candidate or party fails to win reelection. To understand how turnovers affect national outcomes, we study the universe of presidential and parliamentary elections held since 1945. We document the prevalence of turnovers over time and estimate their effects on economic performance, trade, human development, conflict, and democracy. Using a close-elections regression discontinuity design (RDD) across countries, we show that turnovers improve country performance. These effects are not driven by differences in the characteristics of challengers, or by the fact that challengers systematically increase the level of government intervention in the economy. Electing new leaders leads to more policy change, it improves governance, and it reduces perceived corruption, consistent with the expectation that recently elected leaders exert more effort due to stronger reputation concerns. Joint paper with Benjamin Marx and Vincent Rollet).

If you wish to attend this online seminar or would like to have a bilateral with the speaker, please contact seminar organizer Anne Boring (boring@ese.eur.nl).