This paper analyses the impact of economic conditions on Portuguese municipal electoral outcomes. We use two extensive datasets to estimate an economic voting model which accounts for the possibility that different levels of government have different levels of responsibility for economic...

Electoral competition between two expert candidates may lead to inefficient platform choices. The present paper studies electoral competition between two experts and a third uninformed candidate. The latter behaves populistically. This seemingly useless candidate restores efficiency. The paper...

This paper investigates the presence of political budget cycles (PBCs) in the European Union using data from all 27 member states over the period 1997–2008, and explores their variability across countries and over time. Three basic results emerge: First, incumbent governments across the EU...