IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v169y2016i1d10.1007_s11127-016-0378-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electoral thresholds and political representation

Author

Listed:
  • Thushyanthan Baskaran

    (University of Siegen)

  • Mariana Lopes da Fonseca

    (Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance)

Abstract

We rely on a reform in the German federal state of Hesse that abolished a 5 % electoral threshold for local elections to study the effects of electoral thresholds on political representation. The elimination of the threshold had, on average, a stronger effect on municipalities with larger councils since implicit (also known as effective) electoral thresholds are inversely correlated with council size. Using a dataset that includes all 426 Hessian municipalities over the period 1989–2011 and exploiting discontinuities in a state law that maps populations exogenously to council size, we implement a difference-in-discontinuities design. Our results show that the reform had large psychological effects that eventually improved the electoral prospects of (relatively small) local parties. In the short-run, however, the vote and seat shares of the large national parties increased. We offer some explanations for this finding.

Suggested Citation

  • Thushyanthan Baskaran & Mariana Lopes da Fonseca, 2016. "Electoral thresholds and political representation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 117-136, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:169:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-016-0378-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-016-0378-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-016-0378-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-016-0378-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2000. "The Effects of Class Size on Student Achievement: New Evidence from Population Variation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1239-1285.
    2. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2016. "Electoral competition and endogenous political institutions: Quasi-experimental evidence from Germany," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 43-61.
    3. Veronica Grembi & Tommaso Nannicini & Ugo Troiano, 2016. "Do Fiscal Rules Matter?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 1-30, July.
    4. Sibylle Lehmann, 2010. "Chaotic shop-talk or efficient parliament? The Reichstag, the parties, and the problem of governmental instability in the Weimar Republic," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 83-104, July.
    5. Fiva, Jon H. & Folke, Olle, 2016. "Mechanical and Psychological Effects of Electoral Reform," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(2), pages 265-279, April.
    6. Peter Egger & Marko Koethenbuerger, 2010. "Government Spending and Legislative Organization: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Germany," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 200-212, October.
    7. Andrew C. Eggers & Ronny Freier & Veronica Grembi & Tommaso Nannicini, 2018. "Regression Discontinuity Designs Based on Population Thresholds: Pitfalls and Solutions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(1), pages 210-229, January.
    8. Moser,Robert G. & Scheiner,Ethan, 2012. "Electoral Systems and Political Context," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107025424.
    9. Moser,Robert G. & Scheiner,Ethan, 2012. "Electoral Systems and Political Context," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107607996.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Palguta, Ján, 2019. "Political representation and public contracting: Evidence from municipal legislatures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 411-431.
    2. Christian R. Grose & Abby K. Wood, 2020. "Randomized experiments by government institutions and American political development," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(3), pages 401-413, December.
    3. Yogesh Uppal, Thushyanthan Baskaran, 2023. "Political fragmentation, fiscal policy and economic growth in Indian States," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 20(2), pages 161-191, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Köppl–Turyna, Monika & Pitlik, Hans, 2018. "Do equalization payments affect subnational borrowing? Evidence from regression discontinuity," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 84-108.
    2. Mauricio Villamizar‐Villegas & Freddy A. Pinzon‐Puerto & Maria Alejandra Ruiz‐Sanchez, 2022. "A comprehensive history of regression discontinuity designs: An empirical survey of the last 60 years," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1130-1178, September.
    3. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2016. "Electoral competition and endogenous political institutions: Quasi-experimental evidence from Germany," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 43-61.
    4. Lyytikäinen, Teemu & Tukiainen, Janne, 2019. "Are voters rational?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 230-242.
    5. Kantorowicz, Jarosław, 2017. "Electoral systems and fiscal policy outcomes: Evidence from Poland," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 36-60.
    6. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Zohal Hessami, 2017. "Political alignment and intergovernmental transfers in parliamentary systems: evidence from Germany," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 75-98, April.
    7. Britto, Diogo G.C. & Fiorin, Stefano, 2020. "Corruption and legislature size: Evidence from Brazil," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    8. Marcelo Castro & Enlinson Mattos & Fernanda Patriota, 2021. "The effects of health spending on the propagation of infectious diseases," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(10), pages 2323-2344, September.
    9. Matakos, Konstantinos & Savolainen, Riikka & Troumpounis, Orestis & Tukiainen, Janne & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2018. "Electoral Institutions and Intraparty Cohesion," Working Papers 109, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Geschwind, Stephan & Roesel, Felix, 2022. "Taxation under direct democracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 536-554.
    11. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2013. "Electoral thresholds and political outcomes: Quasi-experimental evidence from a reform in Germany," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 177, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    12. Daniel Stockemer & Manon Tremblay, 2015. "Federalism and Women’s Representation: Do Federations have more Women Legislators than Centralized States?," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 45(4), pages 605-625.
    13. Frank, Marco & Stadelmann, David, 2021. "More federal legislators lead to more resources for their constituencies: Evidence from exogenous differences in seat allocations," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 230-243.
    14. Luca Bellodi & Massimo Morelli, 2023. "Politicians’ Incentives and the Congested Budget Effect: Evidence from Italian Municipalities," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 23194, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    15. John Carey & Simon Hix, 2013. "District magnitude and representation of the majority’s preferences: a comment and reinterpretation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 139-148, January.
    16. Luca, Davide & Modrego, Felix, 2020. "Stronger together? Assessing the causal effect of inter-municipal cooperation on the efficiency of small Italian municipalities," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108193, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Florian Dorn & Stefanie Gaebler & Felix Roesel, 2021. "Ineffective fiscal rules? The effect of public sector accounting standards on budgets, efficiency, and accountability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 387-412, March.
    18. Kantorowicz, Jarosław & Köppl-Turyna, Monika, 2020. "Electoral systems and female representation in politics: Evidence from a regression discontinuity," Working Papers 20, Agenda Austria.
    19. Christofzik, Désirée I. & Kessing, Sebastian G., 2018. "Does fiscal oversight matter?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 70-87.
    20. Spaziani, Sara, 2022. "Can gender quotas break the glass ceiling? Evidence from Italian municipal elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:169:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-016-0378-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.