Gowrisankaran, Gautam
[VerfasserIn]
;
Moro, Andrea
[Sonstige Person, Familie und Körperschaft];
Mitchell, Matthew F.
[Sonstige Person, Familie und Körperschaft]National Bureau of Economic Research
Why Do Incumbent Senators Win? Evidence from a Dynamic Selection Model
Erschienen:
Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2004
Erschienen in:NBER working paper series ; no. w10748
Umfang:
1 Online-Ressource
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.3386/w10748
Identifikator:
Reproduktionsnotiz:
Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
Mode of access: World Wide Web
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files
Beschreibung:
Since 1914, incumbent U.S. senators running for reelection have won almost 80% of the time. We investigate why incumbents win so often. We allow for three potential explanations for the incumbency advantage: selection, tenure, and challenger quality, which are separately identified using histories of election outcomes following an open seat election. We specify a dynamic model of voter behavior that allows for these three effects, and structurally estimate the parameters of the model using U.S. Senate data. We find that tenure effects are negative or small. We also find that incumbents face weaker challengers than candidates running for open seats. If incumbents faced challengers as strong as candidates for open seats, the incumbency advantage would be cut in half