Off-Cycle and Out of Office: Election Timing and the Incumbency Advantage
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| Authors | Justin de Benedictis-Kessner |
| Journal/Conference Name | THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS |
| Paper Category | Social Sciences |
| Paper Abstract | Democratic accountability relies on the ability of citizens to reward and punish politicians in elections. Electoral institutions, such as the timing of elections, may play a powerful role in this process. In this article, I assess how on-cycle (concurrent) and off-cycle elections affect one facet of accountability—the incumbency advantage—using data on nearly 10,000 mayoral elections in cities over the past 60 years. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that incumbency carries a substantial advantage for individual candidates. Moreover, I find that on-cycle elections provide incumbents with a far larger advantage than off-cycle elections do. These results show that election timing has important implications for electoral politics and demonstrate one possible mechanism for the prevalence of the incumbency advantage. |
| Date of publication | 2018 |
| Code Programming Language | R |
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