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The Market Value of Political Partisanship. Quasi-experimental Evidence from Municipal Elections

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  • Roberto Basile

    (Facoltà di Economia (Faculty of Economics), Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli (Naples Second University))

  • Valerio Filoso

    (Department of Law University of Naples)

Abstract

Do different political parties implement divergent policies which impact the citizens’ welfare? The overheated debate notwithstanding, it is far from clear if this is really the case. Whereas current literature focuses on specific policy outcomes, we use real estate prices to evaluate the economic impact of municipal policies. Using a new dataset on Italian municipal elections and real estate prices, we employ a regression discontinuity approach to detect the causal effect of a change in municipal majorities. We find no difference between the effects of the policies enacted by left and right-wing parties. Further evidence confirms that the observed differences in fiscal behavior are hardly relevant for real estate capitalized values.

Suggested Citation

  • Roberto Basile & Valerio Filoso, 2016. "The Market Value of Political Partisanship. Quasi-experimental Evidence from Municipal Elections," Gecomplexity Discussion Paper Series 201604, Action IS1104 "The EU in the new complex geography of economic systems: models, tools and policy evaluation", revised Mar 2016.
    • Handle: RePEc:cst:wpaper:201604
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political partisanship; Municipal politics; Real estate prices; Capitalization; Regression discontinuity.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations

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