Electoral institutions and political selection

Research Project of the Chair of Public Finance

Regular and free elections are the key component of democracy. Elections allow voters to select the most competent candidates and incentivize them to adhere to voter preferences. Despite the paramount importance of elections, we still have limited knowledge on the impact of elections on political, economic and social outcomes. A key question is how electoral institutions, such as female suffrage or postal voting, and the information structure of voters shape politics. They not only affect which politicians get elected but also how politicians behave once they are in office. Disentangling these effects is empirically challenging. We developed a novel empirical methodology and collect a new dataset containing all candidates in all cantonal parliamentary elections since 1950. This should enable us to gain new insights into the workings of Swiss democracy. The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) has decided to fund the project for the coming three years.

Prof. Schelker, UniFR, and Prof. Schmid, UniSG

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