Floods and local incumbency disadvantage: a regression discontinuity design

Do voters punish political leaders in the aftermath of a natural disaster? Using a Regression Discontinuity Design, this article explores how floods affect local electoral results in Chile. Taking data from polling stations, our estimations show that floods reduce incumbent candidates’ chances of wi...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Livert Aquino, Felipe Bernabé, Gainza Barrencua, Xabier
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Institución:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/70368
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/70368
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:natural disasters
flooding
local elections
regression discontinuity
Chile
Descripción
Sumario:Do voters punish political leaders in the aftermath of a natural disaster? Using a Regression Discontinuity Design, this article explores how floods affect local electoral results in Chile. Taking data from polling stations, our estimations show that floods reduce incumbent candidates’ chances of winning in affected polling stations in a range from 11.3% to 22%, depending on the bandwidth considered. It also follows from our results that the greater the electoral competition, the greater the probability of losing the next race. The paper explores the electoral mechanism and finds that turnout is significantly lower in affected areas, pointing to voter dissatisfaction as an explanatory factor.