On the validity of the regression discontinuity design for estimating electoral effects: New evidence from over 40,000 close races

American Journal of Political Science

Volumn 59, Issue 1, 2015, Pages 259-274

  Eggers, Andrew C ^a   Fowler, Anthony ^b   Hainmueller, Jens ^c   Hall, Andrew B ^d   Snyder, James M ^d,e  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

^c STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^e NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85028096249     PISSN: 00925853     EISSN: 15405907     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12127     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Ade, Florian, and Ronny Freier . 2011. "Divided Government versus Incumbency Externality Effect: Quasi-Experimental Evidence on Multiple Voting Decisions." DIW Berlin Discussion Paper No. 1121.
2. Aidt, Toke, Miriam A. Golden, and Devesh Tiwari . 2011. "Incumbents and Criminals in the Indian National Legislature." Unpublished manuscript, University of Cambridge.
3. Almond, Douglas, and Joseph J. Doyle . 2011. "After Midnight: A Regression Discontinuity Design in Length of Postpartum Hospital Stays." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 3(3): 1-34.
4. Anderson, Michael L. 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender differences in the effects of Early Intervention: A Rreevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects."Journal of the American Statistical Association 103(484): 1481-95.
5. Ariga, Kenichi. 2010. "Entrenched Incumbents, Irresponsible Parties? Comparative Analysis of Incumbency Advantage across Different Electoral Systems." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan.
6. Barreca, Alan I., Melanie Guldi, Jason M. Lindo, and Glen R. Waddell . 2011. "Saving Babies? Revisiting the Effect of Very Low Birth Weight Classification." Quarterly Journal of Economics 126(4): 2117-23.
7. Boas, Taylor C., and F. Daniel Hidalgo . 2011. "Controlling the Airwaves: Incumbency Advantage and Community Radio in Brazil." American Journal of Political Science 55(4): 869-85.
8. Broockman, David E. 2009. "Do Congressional Candidates Have Reverse Coattails? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design." Political Analysis 17(4): 418-34.
9. Butler, Daniel Mark. 2009. "A Regression Discontinuity Design Analysis of the Incumbency Advantage and Tenure in the U.S. House." Electoral Studies 28(1): 123-28.
10. Caughey, Devin, and Jasjeet S. Sekhon . 2011. "Elections and the Regression Discontinuity Design: Lessons from Close U.S. House Races, 1942-2008." Political Analysis 19(4): 385-408.
11. Cellini, Stephanie Riegg, Fernando Ferreira, and Jesse Rothstein . 2010. "The Value of School Facility Investments: Evidence from a Dynamic Regression Discontinuity Design." Quarterly Journal of Economics 125(1): 215-61.
12. Dal Bó, Ernesto, Pedro Dal Bó, and Jason Snyder . 2009. "Political Dynasties." Review of Economic Studies 76(1): 115-42.
13. Dell, Melissa. 2012. "Trafficking Networks and the Mexican Drug War."Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University.
14. DiNardo, John, and David S. Lee . 2004. "Economic Impacts of New Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984-2001." Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(4): 1383-1441.
15. Eggers, Andrew C., and Jens Hainmueller . 2009. "MPs for Sale? Returns to Office in Postwar British Politics." American Political Science Review 103(4): 513-33.
16. Enos, Ryan, and Eitan Hersh . 2013. "Elite Perceptions of Electoral Closeness: Fear in the Face of Uncertainty or Overconfidence of True Believers." MPSA Annual Meeting Paper.
17. Ferreira, Fernando, and Joseph Gyourko . 2009. "Do Political Parties Matter? Evidence from U.S. Cities." Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(1): 399-422.
18. Folke, Olle, and James M. Snyder Jr. 2012. "Gubernatorial Midterm Slumps." American Journal of Political Science 56(4): 931-48.
19. Gagliarducci, Stefano, and M. Daniele Paserman . 2012. "Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena." Review of Economic Studies 79(3):1021-52.
20. Gerber, Elisabeth R., and Daniel J. Hopkins . 2011. "When Mayors Matter: Estimating the Impact of Mayoral Partisanship on City Policy." American Journal of Political Science 55(2): 326-39.
21. Grimmer, Justin, Eitan Hirsh, Brian Feinstein, and Daniel Carpenter . 2012. "Are Close Elections Random?" Working paper.
22. Hahn, Jinyong, Petra Todd, and Wilbert Van derKlaauw . 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design." Econometrica 69(1): 201-09.
23. Hainmueller, Jens, and Holger Lutz Kern . 2008. "Incumbency as a Source of Spillover Effects in Mixed Electoral Systems: Evidence from a Regression-Discontinuity Design." Electoral Studies 27(2): 213-27.
24. Horiuchi, Yusaku, and Andrew Leigh . 2009. "Estimating Incumbency Advantage: Evidence from Multiple Natural Experiments." Unpublished manuscript, Dartmouth College.
25. Imbens, Guido W., and Thomas Lemieux . 2008. "Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice." Journal of Econometrics 142(2): 615-35.
26. Katz, Jonathan N., and Gary King . 1999. "A Statistical Model for Multiparty Electoral Data." American Political Science Review *(*): 15-32.
27. Kendall, Chad, and Marie Rekkas . 2012. "Incumbency Advantages in the Canadian Parliament." Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue Canadienne d'Économique 45(4): 1560-85.
28. Klarner, Carl. 2008. "Forecasting the 2008 U.S. House, Senate and Presidential Elections at the District and State Level." PS: Political Science & Politics 41(4): 723-28.
29. Klašnja, Marko, and Rocío Titiunik . 2013. "Incumbency Disadvantage in Weak Party Systems: Evidence from Brazil." Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan.
30. Lee, David S. 2008. "Randomized Experiments from Non-Random Selection in U.S. House Elections." Journal of Econometrics 142(2): 675-97.
31. Lee, David S., Enrico Moretti, and Matthew J. Butler . 2004. "Do Voters Affect or Elect Policies? Evidence from the U.S. House." Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(3): 807-59.
32. Lee, David S., and Thomas Lemieux . 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics." Journal of Economic Literature 48(2): 281-355.
33. Lehoucq, Fabrice. 2003. "Electoral Fraud: Causes, Types, and Consequences." Annual Review of Political Science 6(1): 233-56.
34. Leigh, Andrew. 2008. "Estimating the Impact of Gubernatorial Partisanship on Policy Settings and Economic Outcomes: A Regression Discontinuity Approach." European Journal of Political Economy 24(1): 256-68.
35. Linden, Leigh L. 2004. "Are Incumbents Really Advantaged? The Preference for Non-Incumbents in Indian National Elections." Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas at Austin.
36. McCrary, Justin. 2008. "Manipulation of the Running Variable in the Regression Discontinuity Design: A Density Test." Journal of Econometrics 142(2): 698-714.
37. Miratrix, Luke W., Jasjeet S. Sekhon, and Bin Yu . 2013. "Adjusting Treatment Effect Estimates by Post-Stratification in Randomized Experiments." Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology) 75(2): 369-96.
38. Pettersson-Lidbom, Per. 2008. "Do Parties Matter for Economic Outcomes? A Regression-Discontinuity Approach." Journal of the European Economic Association 6(5): 1037-56.
39. Querubin, Pablo. 2011. "Political Reform and Elite Persistence: Term Limits and Political Dynasties in the Philippines." Unpublished manuscript, New York University.
40. Rubin, Donald B. 1973. "The Use of Matched Sampling and Regression Adjustment to Remove Bias in Observational Studies." Biometrics 29(1): 185-203.
41. Rubin, Donald B. 1979. "Using Multivariate Matched Sampling and Regression Adjustment to Control Bias in Observational Studies." Journal of the American Statistical Association 74(366a): 318-28.
42. Rubin, Donald B. 2009. "Should Observational Studies Be Designed to Allow Lack of Balance in Covariate Distributions across Treatment Groups?" Statistics in Medicine 28(9): 1420-23.
43. Schochet, Peter Z. 2010. "Is Regression Adjustment Supported by the Neyman Model for Causal Inference?" Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference 140(1): 246-59.
44. Simpser, Alberto. 2013. Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections: Theory, Practice, and Implications. New York: Cambridge University Press.
45. Snyder, Jason. 2005. "Detecting Manipulation in U.S. House Elections." Unpublished manuscript, UCLA.
46. Thistlethwaite, Donald L., and Donald T. Campbell . 1960. "Regression-Discontinuity Analysis: An Alternative to the Ex Post Facto Experiment." Journal of Educational Psychology 51(6): 309-17.
47. Trounstine, Jessica. 2011. "Evidence of a Local Incumbency Advantage." Legislative Studies Quarterly 36(2): 255-80.
48. Uppal, Yogesh. 2009. "The Disadvantaged Incumbents: Estimating Incumbency Effects in Indian State Legislatures." Public Choice 138(1-2): 9-27.
49. Uppal, Yogesh. 2010. "Estimating Incumbency Effects in U.S. State Legislatures: A Quasi-Experimental Study." Economics & Politics 22(2): 180-99.
50. Vogl, Tom. 2012. "Race and the Politics of Close Elections." Working paper, Princeton University.
51. Westfall, Peter H., and Stanley S. Young . 1993. Resampling-Based Multiple Testing: Examples and Methods for p-Value Adjustment. New York: Wiley.