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Commodity Shocks and Incumbency Effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2021

Lucas M. Novaes  and
Luis Schiumerini Open the ORCID record for Luis Schiumerini [Opens in a new window]
Lucas M. Novaes*
Affiliation:
Insper Institute of Education and Research
Luis Schiumerini*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
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Abstract

Why do incumbents enjoy an electoral advantage in some political settings but suffer from a disadvantage in others? We propose a novel explanation linking variation in incumbency effects with exogenous commodity shocks. While voters attempt to sanction incumbents for economic performance, changes in commodity prices affect their evaluations and condition the electoral fortunes of incumbents vis-à-vis challengers. We test our argument in Brazilian municipalities, combining a plausibly exogenous measure of variation in commodity prices with a close election regression discontinuity design. Our results show that increases in the price of agricultural commodities greatly enhance the prospects of incumbents, while negative shocks exacerbate their incumbency disadvantage, especially in rural municipalities. Further investigation suggests that commodity shocks do not operate via voter learning about candidate quality, changes in the pool of candidates, shifts in voter preferences, or strategic elite investments. Instead, we find suggestive evidence that commodity shocks affect voters' evaluations through their effect on local economic growth.

Keywords

incumbency effectscommodity shocksaccountability
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , October 2022 , pp. 1689 - 1708
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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