When does Regression discontinuity design work? Evidence from random election outcomes

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2018-07

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

33
1019-1051

Series

QUANTITATIVE ECONOMICS, Volume 9, issue 2

Abstract

We use elections data in which a large number of ties in vote counts between candidates are resolved via a lottery to study the personal incumbency advantage. We benchmark non-experimental regression discontinuity design (RDD) estimates against the estimate produced by this experiment that takes place exactly at the cutoff. The experimental estimate suggests that there is no personal incumbency advantage. In contrast, conventional local polynomial RDD estimates suggest a moderate and statistically significant effect. Bias-corrected RDD estimates that apply robust inference are, however, in line with the experimental estimate. Therefore, state-of-the-art implementation of RDD can meet the replication standard in the context of close elections.

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Keywords

close elections, experiment, incumbency advantage, regression discontinuity design

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Citation

Hyytinen, A, Meriläinen, J, Saarimaa, T, Toivanen, O & Tukiainen, J 2018, ' When does Regression discontinuity design work? Evidence from random election outcomes ', QUANTITATIVE ECONOMICS, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 1019-1051 . https://doi.org/10.3982/QE864