This paper studies the causal effects of the 2024 US presidential election on business expectations of German manufacturing firms. It exploits the variation in the timing of survey responses to identify shifts in expectations around the election. The probability of reporting negative...

We study the impact of an election campaign on the labor market outcomes of incumbent party supporters. Using unique data on voters' political preferences during a pre-election period in Albania and a DiD design that compares the evolution of outcomes among close neighbours, we show that...

Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970) proposed that organizations persist when loyalty tempers incentives to exit after adverse shocks. We test this argument using newly digitized individual-level voting records from 28 English constituencies (1832-1868), covering 134,000 real votes....

We study the communication strategies on Twitter/X of 367 political leaders in 21 countries, focusing on electoral competition between populists and non-populists. We measure polarization by the ease with which the leader can be classified as populist or not, conditional on his tweet. We find...

Viktor Orbáns FIDESZ hat nach 16 Regierungsjahren zum ersten Mal eine Wahlniederlage eingefahren. Vor allem wirtschaftliche Probleme als Folge eines autoritären und interventionistischen Regierungsstils haben den Ausschlag zum rasanten Aufstieg und Erdrutschsieg einer oppositionellen...

We study whether the partisan affiliation of U.S. state governors affects the outcome of partisan judicial elections. Exploiting close gubernatorial races from 1946 to 2023, we find that electing a Democratic (Republican) governor significantly increases the subsequent vote share of Democratic...

This paper reviews a growing body of theoretical and empirical research on Italian populism through a detailed examination of the Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle, M5S), focusing on its experience in municipal elections. Using a wide range of administrative and survey data, as well as...

We study political shocks as potential birth outcomes stressors, specifically the unexpected result of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We investigate this two-sided shock using an innovative data linkage: Colorado voter registrations and birth certificates, matched by sex, birth year, and...

We study how inflation expectations can be anchored through different forms of communication and whether such anchoring survives political change. Using a two-wave panel RCT around the 2025 German federal election, we show that providing the ECB's target and projections lowers expectations by...

This paper models theoretically and tests empirically the hypothesis that the decision about the location of a public bad within a multi-tiered structure of government (a facility providing benefits throughout the federation but inflicting damage to the region hosting it) can be driven by...

The parliamentary elections held in Bangladesh on 12 February 2026 marked a turn­ing point in the country’s recent history. In August 2024, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who had served for a total of 20 years, with one interruption, was removed from office. An interim government led by Nobel...

Five years after the bloody military coup and amid a civil war, elections have taken place in Myanmar. They were neither free nor fair, nor was any attempt made to keep up an appearance of even minimum democratic standards. From the outset, the main purpose of the elections was not political...

Using quarterly data for the period Q1:2000–Q4:2024, the study examines whether elections in EU‑27 member states shape the composition and timing of fiscal policy strategies, and how political, fiscal and institutional constraints condition these dynamics. Employing a two‑way...

Social media platforms are often credited with empowering grassroots movements in the pursuit of political freedoms. In this paper, we show how social media can also be exploited by political elites to undermine democratic institutions, using the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection as a case...

The higher turnout in Iraq’s recent parliamentary elections reflects advances over the past four years, notably in infrastructure development, security, and political stability. The election’s outcome and ensuing coalition-building dynamics underscore trends and challenges that will shape...

Despite the growing public debate on fiscal surprise during election periods in jurisdictions where the democratic dispensation is young, comprehensive empirical works to this effect in the case of Africa are hard to find. This study, therefore, sought to contribute to the debate on two counts....

Vaccines are responsible for large increases in human welfare and yet we know little about the political impacts of publicly-managed vaccination campaigns. We fill this gap by studying the case of Chile, which offers a rare combination of a high-stakes election, voluntary voting, and a...

Using newly digitized data on the growth of the telegraph network in America during 1840-1852, the paper studies the impacts of the electric telegraph on national elections. I use proximity to daily newspapers with telegraphic connections to Washington to generate plausibly exogenous variation...

We present the first comprehensive evidence on the role of cognitive ability and personality traits in the selection of electoral candidates and election of politicians. Using unique data that combine population registers and election statistics from local government elections in Finland with...

Using a novel dataset in a difference-in-differences framework, I study the political implications of the change in policies protecting drought-impacted communities in Tunisia in 3088 districts. In 2016, the Tunisian government had drastically reduced support to farmers affected by droughts. I...

In this paper, we unveil targeted repression against journalists as an elaborate strategy used by modern autocrats to mitigate the risk of mass protests during autocratic elections-a common threat to their rule. Repression is deployed to discipline the media before elections to secure favorable...

The concept of the Condorcet winner has become central to most electoral models in the political economy literature. A Condorcet winner is the alternative preferred by a plurality in every pairwise competition; the notion of a k-winner generalizes that of a Condorcet winner. The k-winner is the...

In this paper, we unveil targeted repression against journalists as an elaborate strategy used by modern autocrats to mitigate the risk of mass protests during autocratic elections—a common threat to their rule. Repression is deployed to discipline the media before elections to secure...

We study the electoral repercussions of the L'Aquila earthquake in 2009, one of Italy's most catastrophic post-WWII seismic events. We construct a unique municipality-level dataset, combining high-resolution data on the ground acceleration recorded during the earthquake with European election...

This report compiles our recent comment on Ahmed, Hodler, and Islam (2024, AHI-2024) and our response to the authors' reply to our comment. Our report is one element in a concerted forensic reproduction of studies based on data collected by GDRI, a Bangladesh-based survey company. We appreciate...

In the face of the 2024 European Parliament elections, the study at hand investigates the role of work, working conditions, and workers' voice for (anti-)democratic attitudes and far-right voting intentions. For this purpose, primary survey data was collected among the labour force in ten EU...

Racist attacks and incidents frequently spark anti-racist protest campaigns. This research examines the effect of such mobilization on voting behavior in subsequent national and European elections. We focus on two periods of anti-racist demonstra-tions in Germany that followed 1) the killing of...

In recent years, academic research and public debate have increasingly focused on the relationship between immigration and support for populist radical right-wing parties (PRRPs). This study examines the 2022 Italian National Elections to assess whether the presence of immigrants at municipal...

We study the possible increase of partisan polarization in the Netherlands over the period 1998-2023, in particular its relationship with the degree of urbanization, the so-called urban-rural divide. Using national election results at the municipal level and municipal characteristics, we show...

We study the interaction of climate policies and investments into fossil and renewable energy generation capacity under political uncertainty caused by democratic elections. We develop an overlapping generations model, where elected governments determine carbon taxation and green investment...

This paper investigates the causal effect of the term length of political executives on economic policy outcomes. To establish causality, we exploit the staggered adoption of four-year terms for governors across US states, using data for the period 1937-2008. We find that increasing governors'...