Competing on Good Politicians

Abstract

Is electoral competition good for political selection? To address this issue, we introduce a theoretical model where ideological parties select and allocate high-valence (experts) and low-valence (party loyalists) candidates into electoral districts. Voters care about a national policy (e.g., party ideology) and the valence of their district's candidates. High-valence candidates are more costly for the parties to recruit. We show that parties compete by selecting and allocating good politicians to the most contestable districts. Empirical evidence on Italian members of parliament confirms this prediction: politicians with higher ex ante quality, measured by years of schooling, previous market income, and local government experience, are more likely to run in contestable districts. Indeed, despite being different on average, politicians belonging to opposite political coalitions converge to high-quality levels in close electoral races. Furthermore, politicians elected in contestable districts have fewer absences in parliament, due to a selection effect more than to reelection incentives.

Do politicians shirk when reelection is certain? Evidence from the German parliament

“…I show how the German political setting is very different from the Italian one and that their result does not hold in general. In contrast to the finding of Galasso and Nannicini (2011) for Italy, reelection concerns seem to be the driving force of absences in Germany. Nannicini et al (2013) show that in districts with higher social capital (measured via blood donations) MPs with high absence rates and criminal investigations are punished more by voters.…”

“…The two papers that are closest to my study are Galasso andNannicini et al (2013). Both again focus on the Italian case.…”

“…Both again focus on the Italian case. Galasso and Nannicini (2011) present a model where party leaders allocate high quality candidates to more competitive districts and politicians elected in competitive districts are less absent in parliament. They check their hypotheses using data from 1994 to 2006 and find that the lower absence rates of MPs in competitive districts are more due to selection (high quality candidates are less absent) than to reelection motives (small vote margins encourage not to shirk too much).…”

“…They check their hypotheses using data from 1994 to 2006 and find that the lower absence rates of MPs in competitive districts are more due to selection (high quality candidates are less absent) than to reelection motives (small vote margins encourage not to shirk too much). Galasso and Nannicini (2011) claim that high quality candidates (who are less absent anyway) are put in competitive districts by party leaders. However, in Germany who becomes district candidate of a party is not determined by party leaders, but by party conventions and thus more decentralized.…”

Quotas for Men: Reframing Gender Quotas as a Means of Improving Representation for All

“…Yet, many empirical studies of candidate quality still focus on income and education rather than the character traits driving candidate selection (Baltrunaite et al 2012;Besley et al 2012;Galasso and Nannicini 2011;Júlio and Tavares 2010;Kotakorpi and Poutvara 2010).…”