Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/240463 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IFN Working Paper No. 1320
Publisher: 
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm
Abstract: 
In most democracies, members of parliament are either elected over a party list or by a district. We use a discontinuity in the German parliamentary system to investigate the causal effect of a district-election on an MP's conformity with her party-line. A district-election does not affect roll call voting behavior causally, possibly due to overall high adherence to party voting. Analyzing the parliamentary speeches of each MP allows us to overcome the high party discipline with regard to parliamentary voting. Using textual analysis and machine learning techniques, we create two measures of closeness of an MP's speeches to her party. We find that district-elected members of parliament do not differ, in terms of speeches, from those of their party-peers who have been elected through closed party lists. However, both speeches and voting correlate with district characteristics suggesting that district-elections allow districts to select more similar politicians.
Subjects: 
Party-line
Textual Analysis
Regression Discontinuity
Parliamentary Speeches
Voting
JEL: 
D72
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
409.45 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.