Competition,benchmarking, and electoral success: Evidence from 69 years of the German Bundestag |
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| Institution: | 1. University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany;2. Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA), Basel, Switzerland;1. EM Strasbourg Business School, Université de Strasbourg, 61 Avenue de la Forêt Noire, 67000, Strasbourg, France;2. Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), Russia;1. Agricultural and Applied Economics, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409, USA;2. Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, La Crosse, WI, 54601, USA;3. Rawls College of Business, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409, USA |
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| Abstract: | The German electoral system ensures that there is always at least one federal legislator per constituency. This legislator can face competition from additionally elected competitors to the Bundestag from precisely the same constituency. The existence of several legislators per constituency allows voters to benchmark their quality against each other. We analyze the causal impact of having more elected competitors from the same constituency on legislators’ personal success versus the success of their parties. Our data cover the legislative terms in the German Bundestag and federal elections in the period 1953–2021. In our analysis, we rely on exogenous variation in elected competitors by investigating changes induced by legislators who leave the Bundestag during the legislative period and their respective replacement candidates as instrumental variables. We find that legislators are less successful in elections when they are exposed to elected competitors from the same constituency. The results suggest that benchmarking possibilities are relevant for voters to evaluate their representatives. |
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| Keywords: | Political competition Electoral success Split ticket voting Elections Political representation D72 D78 H11 |
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