Costly voting, turnout, and candidate valence

Prete, Anna Lo; Revelli, Federico

doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2017.06.025

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(6 reference statements)

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“…Finally, within a theoretical framework where voting yields expressive benefits that are driven both by a position issue (ideology) and by a common value (valence of candidates), holding the elections in circumstances that represent temporary boosts to a community's social capital can tilt the selection mechanism in favor of the most valent candidates (Lo Prete and Revelli, 2017). The idea (formalized in Appendix B) is that voters receive signals before the election about the valence of candidates, and those signals may or may not match their ideological views.…”

Section: Timing Of Elections Social Capital and The Selection Of Canmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, professional records can provide useful information being a proxy of the level of knowledge required to perform specific tasks such as leading and managing public activities. Following the existing literature (Bordignon et al 2013;Revelli, 2016;Lo Prete and Revelli, 2017), we use the profession of the mayor before entering politics as a proxy for her administrative skills. More specifically, we build a dummy variable (High professional status) taking the value 1 in case the elected mayor was employed in a distinguished profession (architects, engineers, physicians, accountants, lawyers and academics).…”

Section: Valencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, Columns G and H show the results of estimating the effect of the concomitance of electoral and religious dates on elected mayors' win margins. The idea is that a higher win margin can be taken as an indirect piece of evidence of voters' convergence towards valent candidates irrespective of ideological considerations (Revelli, 2016;Lo Prete and Revelli, 2017). The win margin is expressed as the logarithmic transformation of the absolute difference in votes between the top two candidates.…”

Section: Valencementioning

confidence: 99%

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The sacred and the profane of budget cycles: evidence from Italian municipalities

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2019

Int Tax Public Finance

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This paper investigates the influence of the staggered schedule of Italian mayoral elections and of the calendar of traditional religious celebrations (Patron Saint days) on the timing of fiscal decisions and on the selection of candidates. We find that potentially disruptive local income tax increases are more likely to be taken after local elections and Patron Saint Days. Moreover, when the elections take place during the weeks leading to Patron Saint day's traditional celebrations, the elected mayors tend to exhibit milder ideology and higher indicators of valence, reinforcing the hypothesis that local folklore contributes to increasing the sense of community and lowering the ideological stakes of local races.

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Section: Timing Of Elections Social Capital and The Selection Of Canmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Valencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Valencementioning

confidence: 99%

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The sacred and the profane of budget cycles: evidence from Italian municipalities

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Financial education: From better personal finance to improved citizenship

Fornero

Prete

2023

J. financ. lit. wellbeing

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Financial education is a crucial determinant of informed decisions, in both the private and social spheres. From a life cycle perspective, it improves personal finance. From youth to retirement, basic economic and financial competences, including specific pension literacy, help to plan for the future and to make better choices, thus reducing the probability of financial fragility, particularly in old age, and increasing economic independence, particularly for women. In the social sphere, a growing literature is demonstrating that basic financial education also affects public choices, influencing voting behavior, economic reforms, policy outcomes, and, more generally, the workings of our democracies.

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Voter Turnout and City Performance: Evidence from Italian Municipalities

Prete

Revelli

2020

The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization

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Using data on mayoral elections in large Italian cities during the 2000s, we investigate whether and how voter turnout affects city performance across a number of dimensions. To address the issue of voter turnout endogeneity and identify the transmission mechanism, we exploit exogenous variation in participation rates in mayoral elections due to anticipated shocks (concurrence of local and national elections) and unanticipated shocks (bad weather on the day of the election) to the cost of voting. The results consistently point to a negative impact of voter turnout rates on indicators of urban environmental performance, life quality, and administrative efficiency. Interestingly, though, we find that only anticipated shocks to turnout affect the quality of elected mayors measured on a number of competence dimensions, compatibly with the hypothesis of a selection mechanism whereby parties choose candidates to maximize their chances of winning the elections based on their expectations on voter turnout rates (JEL D72, H72, C26).

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Costly voting, turnout, and candidate valence

Cited by 4 publications

References 6 publications

The sacred and the profane of budget cycles: evidence from Italian municipalities

The sacred and the profane of budget cycles: evidence from Italian municipalities

Financial education: From better personal finance to improved citizenship

Voter Turnout and City Performance: Evidence from Italian Municipalities

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