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Title: Moderating Political Extremism: Single Round vs Runoff Elections under Plurality Rule

Author(s): Massimo Bordignon, Tommaso Nannicini and Guido Tabellini

Publication Date: December 2014

Keyword(s): electoral rules, policy volatility and regression discontinuity design

Programme Area(s): Public Economics

Abstract: We compare single round vs runoff elections under plurality rule, allowing for partly endogenous party formation. Under runoff elections, the number of political candidates is larger, but the influence of extremist voters on equilibrium policy and hence policy volatility is smaller, because the bargaining power of the political extremes is reduced compared to single round elections. The predictions on the number of candidates and on policy volatility are confirmed by evidence from a regression discontinuity design in Italy, where cities above 15,000 inhabitants elect the mayor with a runoff system, while those below hold single round elections.

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Bibliographic Reference

Bordignon, M, Nannicini, T and Tabellini, G. 2014. 'Moderating Political Extremism: Single Round vs Runoff Elections under Plurality Rule'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=10323