Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/185325 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11865
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study the effect of term limits on voter turnout in local Italian elections. Since 2014 the Italian law allows mayors in municipalities with a population size lower than 3,000 inhabitants to re-run for a third term, whereas mayors in cities with a number of residents above the cutoff still face a two-term limit. The introduction of the reform permits us to implement a difference-in-discontinuities design exploiting the before/after with the discontinuous policy change. We find that voters negatively react to the introduction of the reform and in particular electoral participation decreases by about 5 percentage points in municipalities eligible to the treatment compared to municipalities in the control group. This negative effect is essentially driven by a decrease in the political competition. We also find that relaxing term limits does not improve the quality of politicians running for election.
Subjects: 
diff-in-discontinuities
voter turnout
political competition
JEL: 
C21
D72
H70
J78
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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