The persistence literature in economics and related disciplines connects recent outcomes to events long ago. This influential literature marks a promising development but has drawn criticism. We discuss two prominent examples that ground the rise of the Nazi Party in distant historical roots....

Adolf Hitler's seizure of power was one of the most consequential events of the twentieth century. Yet, our understanding of which factors fueled the astonishing rise of the Nazis remains highly incomplete. This paper shows that religion played an important role in the Nazi party's electoral...

The effect of ethnic violence on electoral results provides useful insights into voter behaviour in democratic societies. Religious riots have claimed more than 14,000 lives in India since 1950. We study the effect of Hindu-Muslim riots on election results in India. We combine data on riots,...

We study the connection between religion and political radicalization in Weimar Germany, where the Catholic Church vehemently warned ordinary parishioners about the dangers of National Socialism. Methodologically, we show that instrumental variables techniques are useful not only for making...

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...

We explore the effect of oil import price shocks on political outcomes using a worldwide dataset on elections of chief executives. Oil import price shocks cause a reduction in the odds of reelection of incumbents, an increase in media chatter about fuel prices, and an increase in non-violent...

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...

This paper investigates the impact of voter support on the representation of women in the political profession. The empirical analysis exploits two-stage elections in the United States and Italy to hold the selection of candidates constant. In two-stage elections, candidates are admitted to the...

This paper investigates how direct election regimes (à la presidential democracy) affect the selection of women into political offices compared to indirect appointment (à la parliamentary). Exploiting the staggered phase-in across Italian municipalities of a reform to the local institutional...

We explore how public opinion polls affect candidates' campaign spending in political competition. Generally, polls lead to (more) asymmetric behavior. Under a majority rule there always exists an equilibrium in which the initially more popular candidate invests more in the campaign and thereby...