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...

We use data for 198121 candidates and 1351 random election outcomes to estimate the effect of incumbency status on future electoral success. We find no evidence of incumbency advantage using data on randomized elections. In contrast, regression discontinuity design, using optimal bandwidths,...

We analyze the effect of municipal employees' political representation in municipal councils on local public spending. To quantify the effect, we use within-party, as-good-as random variation in close elections in the Finnish open-list proportional election system. One more councilor employed by...

We study how political parties select political leaders. Using regression discontinuity design and data from Finnish local elections, we find that parties use vote ranks to decide upon promotions. Moreover, we show that this primary effect is higher when competition either between or within...

We explore the connection between social class, social mobility, and voting behavior in nineteenth-century England. To avoid pitfalls associated with survey or aggregate data on voting behavior, we use administrative longitudinal records preceding secret ballot on voters’ choices and...

The composition of governing coalitions does not always reflect the relative sizes of the coalition members, but research has not been able to fully reconcile why. We propose that political parties with more (re-elected) incumbent representatives fare better in coalitional bargaining. To...

Much of what we know about the alignment of voters with parties comes from mass surveys of the electorate in the postwar period or from aggregate electoral data. Using individual elector level panel data from 19th-century United Kingdom poll books, we reassess the development of a party-centred...

We use elections data in which a large number of ties in vote counts between candidates are resolved via a lottery to study the personal incumbency advantage. We benchmark non‐experimental regression discontinuity design (RDD) estimates against the estimate produced by this experiment that...