Arbeitspapier
The power of parties
As with the market for goods and services, democratic competition involves political parties offering their services (policy programs) to citizen-consumers who vote for their preferred partisan supplier. Little is known about the partial effect of a shift in parties' seat shares for given voter preferences, particularly in proportional representation systems. We estimate party effects using a regression discontinuity design tailored to proportional systems. Based on rich local government data, the analyses show that parties matter for fiscal policies. A larger left-wing party leads to more property taxation and higher user charges. It also leads to higher spending on child care but less on old-age care. These effects are caused both by changes in the representation of individual parties and by shifts between the party blocs.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 4119
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Panel Data Models; Spatio-temporal Models
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
State and Local Budget and Expenditures
- Subject
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fiscal policy
proportional representation
regression discontinuity design
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Fiva, Jon H.
Folke, Olle
Sørensen, Rune J.
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
- (where)
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Munich
- (when)
-
2013
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Fiva, Jon H.
- Folke, Olle
- Sørensen, Rune J.
- Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
Time of origin
- 2013
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