Date:
Location:
Today's Speaker
Alex Fouirnaies (University of Chicago), "Can Interest Groups Influence Elections? Evidence from Unions in Great Britain 1900-2019"
Abstract
Unions sponsor electoral candidates around the world, yet little is known about the consequences of these arrangements. I study how union sponsorship affected the electoral prospect of British parliamentary candidates throughout the 20th century. From archival material, I collect new data on the universe of union-sponsored candidates. Employing a difference-in-differences design, I document that sponsorship caused a six percentage-point increase in candidate vote shares. I outline theoretical mechanisms and examine whether sponsees improved their electoral fortune because of changes in constituencies, opponents, resources, mobilization, or information. The evidence supports the constituency and resource mechanisms: Sponsorship helped candidates get nominated in attractive constituencies, accounting for two-thirds of the effect, and caused an inflow of campaign resources into constituency-party organizations. Overall, sponsorship promoted the representation of union-friendly candidates in parliament, but it only led to moderate shifts in the balance of power between parties.
Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.
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All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.