Old and Young Politicians / Alberto F. Alesina, Ugo Troiano, Traviss Cassidy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alesina, Alberto F.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Troiano, Ugo.

Cassidy, Traviss.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w20977.

NBER working paper series no. w20977

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2015.

Summary:

We evaluate the effect of a politician's age on political governance, reelection rates,and policies using data on Italian local governments. Our results suggest that younger politicians are more likely to behave strategically in response to election incentives: they increase spending and obtain more transfers from higher levels of government in preelection years. We argue that is a sign of stronger career concerns incentives. The results are robust to adopting three different identification strategies: fixed-effects regression, standard regression discontinuity design, and an augmented regression discontinuity design that controls for residual heterogeneity.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2015.