15:30 - 17:45
Friday-Panel
Chair/s:
Thomas Fleming
Discussant/s:
Alessandro Nai
Meeting Room F

Thomas Fleming
How Does Constituency-Level Partisan Dealignment Affect Parliamentary Behaviour?

Paul Bose
Political (self-)selection and competition: Evidence from U.S. Congressional elections

Corinna Kroeber, Jan Berz
Walking the line: Electoral cycles and the shift in legislative priorities among German Parliamentarians

Monika Mühlböck, Manuel Schwaninger
Risk Preferences and Outcome Bias in the Delegation Process

Lucia Motolinia
Cultivating a Personal Vote can Increase Legislative Cohesion: Evidence from Clientelistic Parties in Mexico
Political (self-)selection and competition: Evidence from U.S. Congressional elections
Paul Bose
Erasmus University Rotterdam

How does competition affect the entry and selection of politicians? I use data on U.S. Congressional primary and general elections for the years 1998-2014 to study this question. I measure quality using previous legislative experience and the novel “identity match” quantifying how well candidates demographically represent their district. To identify causal effects, I rely on variation in competition caused by demographic changes resulting from decennial redistricting. Difference-in-difference estimates reveal differences between the electorally dominant and weak party. They show that experienced candidates avoid competition in primary elections in the strong party. As opposed to this, experienced candidates and candidates with a good identity match run relatively more frequently in primary elections in the weak party as competition increases. The effects of competition and entry overall cancel each other out so that there are no effects on the quality and identity match of the eventual winner of the general election.