Competing on good politicians

Arbeitspapier

Is electoral competition good for political selection? To address this issue, we introduce a theoretical model in which ideological parties select candidates between party loyalists and experts, and allocate them into the electoral districts. Non-ideological voters, who care about national and local policies, strongly prefer experts. We show that parties compete on good politicians by allocating them to the most contestable districts. Empirical evidence on Italian members of parliament confirms this prediction. We find that politicians with higher ex-ante quality - as measured by years of schooling, previous market income, and local government experience - are more likely to run in a contestable district. Indeed, despite being different on average, the characteristics of politicians belonging to opposite parties converge to high-quality levels in close races. Furthermore, politicians elected in contestable districts make fewer absences in parliament; this is shown to be driven more by a selection effect than by reelection incentives.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 4282

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Public Economics: General
• Subject: Political competition ; political selection ; probabilistic voting ; Politiker ; Qualifikation ; Wettbewerb ; Wahl ; Wahlverhalten ; Italien

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Galasso, Vincenzo ; Nannicini, Tommaso
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2009

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/35776
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2009082147
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET