Arbeitspapier
Signature requirements and citizen initatives: Quasi-experimental evidence from Germany
Signature requirements are often used as hurdles to prevent overuse of public referenda. We evaluate the causal effect of lowering signature requirements on the number of observed citizen initiatives. Based on municipality-level data for Germany, we make use of legislative changes at specific population thresholds to build an identification strategy using a regression discontinuity design. We find that reducing the signature requirement by 1 percentage point increases the probability of observing an initiative by 8-10 percentage points. The results are robust to a variety of tests. Importantly, we go into great detail to rule out other potential confounders.
- Sprache
-
Englisch
- Erschienen in
-
Series: DIW Discussion Papers ; No. 1311
- Klassifikation
-
Wirtschaft
Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government
State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations: Other
- Thema
-
signature requirements
citizen initiatives
local referenda
municipality data
regression discontinuity design
- Ereignis
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (wer)
-
Arnold, Felix
Freier, Ronny
- Ereignis
-
Veröffentlichung
- (wer)
-
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
- (wo)
-
Berlin
- (wann)
-
2013
- Handle
- Letzte Aktualisierung
-
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ
Datenpartner
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.
Objekttyp
- Arbeitspapier
Beteiligte
- Arnold, Felix
- Freier, Ronny
- Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
Entstanden
- 2013