Publications
Measuring Closeness in Proportional Representation Systems
Political Analysis. 2024.
Simon Luechinger, Mark Schelker, LUKAS SCHMID
We provide closed-form solutions for measuring electoral closeness of candidates in proportional representation (PR) systems. In contrast to plurality systems, closeness in PR systems cannot be directly inferred from votes. Our measure captures electoral closeness for both open- and closed-list systems and for both main families of seat allocation mechanisms. This unified measure quantifies the vote surplus (shortfall) for elected (nonelected) candidates. It can serve as an assignment variable in regression discontinuity designs or as a measure of electoral competitiveness. For illustration, we estimate the incumbency advantage for the parliaments in Switzerland, Honduras, and Norway.
The Impact of Host Language Proficiency on Migrants' Employment Outcomes
American Economic Review: INSIGHTS. 2023.
LUKAS SCHMID
This paper estimates the economic gains from proficiency in the host country’s language on migrants’ employment outcomes by exploiting the exogenous placement of refugees to Swiss cantons and a sharp language border dividing German- and French-speaking regions. Using administrative data on African refugees who applied for Swiss asylum between 2008 and 2017, I compare French-speaking refugees assigned to the French-speaking region to French-speaking refugees assigned to the German-speaking region, and adjust for common regional differences with outcomes from English-speaking African refugees. The results suggest that language proficiency more than doubles the employment level in the first five years after arrival.
Do Voting Advice Applications Change Political Behavior?
Journal of Politics. 2023.
Christine Benesch, Rino Heim, Mark Schelker, Lukas Schmid
We analyze how the introduction of the voting advice application smartvote in Switzerland affects voter turnout, voting behavior, and electoral outcomes. The Swiss context offers an ideal setting to identify the causal effects of voting advice applications using real-world aggregate data because smartvote was introduced in different cantons at different points in time. We find that smartvote does not affect turnout but that voters more actively select candidates instead of parties by splitting their ballot. Our findings suggest that no specific party seems to benefit from the change in voting behavior.
Ancestry and international trade
Journal of COMPARATIVE ECONOMICS. 2021.
Irene Fensore, Stefan Legge, LUKAS SCHMID
This paper examines whether the relatedness of populations across the world shapes international trade flows. Using data on common ancestry for 172 countries covering more than 99% of global trade, we document that country pairs with weaker ancestral relationships are less likely to trade with each other (extensive margin) and, if they do trade, they exchange fewer goods and smaller volumes (intensive margin). The effect of ancestry is robust to a vast array of micro-geographic control variables and mitigated, yet still sizable and significant, when controlling for other measures of cultural distance as well as for current migrant stocks.
Fiscal Rules Cause Lower Debt: Evidence from Switzerland’s Federal Debt Containment Rule
KYKLOS. 2020.
MICHELE sALVI, cHRISTOPH a. sCHALTEGGER, LUKAS SCHMID
This paper studies the effect of the Swiss federal debt containment rule on public debt. Using the synthetic control method, we provide evidence that the introduction of the federal rule in 2003 has reduced public debt ratio in Switzerland by 2.5 percentage points on average until 2010. By exploiting possible mechanisms, we find no evidence that the reduction in debt ratio was driven by a debt relocation to sub-government levels or cutbacks in investment expenditure. On one hand, we argue that the positive impact of the fiscal rule is based on its design features, namely its precise but cyclically adjusted target, the comprehensive scope to prevent budget loopholes, and the strict sanction mechanism. On the other hand, we also discuss the generalizability of our findings to other countries and contend that its direct democratic authorization has contributed to its political enforcement and viability.
Electoral reforms and the representativeness of turnout
Political Science Research and Methods. 2020.
Michael Bechtel and Lukas Schmid
Voters tend to be richer, more conservative, and more educated than non-voters. While many electoral reforms promise to increase political participation, these policy instruments may have multidimensional and differential effects that can increase or decrease the representativeness of turnout. We develop an approach that allows us to estimate these effects and assess the impact of postal voting on representational inequality in Swiss referendums using individual-level ( ) and aggregate-level data from 1981 to 2009. We find that postal voting mobilizes equally across a wide range of political and sociodemographic groups but more strongly activates high earners, those with medium education levels, and less politically interested individuals. Yet, those who vote are not less politically knowledgeable and the effects on the composition of turnout remain limited. Our results inform research on the consequences of electoral reforms meant to increase political participation in large electorates.
Rain, emotions and voting for the status quo
European Economic Review. 2019.
Armando Meier, Alois Stutzer und Lukas Schmid
Do emotions affect the decision between change and the status quo? We exploit exogenous variation in emotions caused by rain and analyze data on more than 870,000 municipal vote outcomes in Switzerland to address this question. The empirical tests are based on administrative ballot outcomes and individual postvote survey data. We find that rain decreases the share of votes for political change. Our robustness checks suggest that this finding is not driven by changes in the composition of the electorate and changes in information acquisition. In addition, we provide evidence that rain might have altered the outcome of several high-stake votes. We discuss the psychological mechanism and document that rain reduces the willingness to take risks, a pattern that is consistent with the observed reduction in the support for change.
COMPULSORY VOTING, HABIT FORMATION, AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
MICHAEL M. BECHTEL, DOMINIK HANGARTNER, LUKAS SCHMID
review of economics and statistics. 2018.
Can compulsory voting induce lasting changes in citizens' voting habits? We study the long-term and spillover effects of a severely sanctioned and long-standing compulsory voting law in the Swiss canton of Vaud (1900-1970). Our findings suggest that compulsory voting strongly increases turnout in federal referendums by about 30 percentage points. However, this effect returns to zero quickly after voting is no longer compulsory. Moreover, we find only minor spillover effects on related forms of political participation. These spillover effects are limited to referendums that were concurrent with referendums for which voting was compulsory. These results question habit formation arguments in the context of compulsory voting laws. Instead, our findings are consistent with a rationalist model of political participation in which individuals quickly adapt to changes in the costs of non-voting.
Dyadic Value Distance: Determinants and Consequences
Adrian Jäggi, Stefan Legge, LUKAS SCHMID
Economics Letters. 2018.
This paper establishes a measure of bilateral differences in values using 857 questions from the World Values Survey. We explore the determinants of value distance, linking it to geography as well as the historical relatedness of populations across 90 countries. Furthermore, we assess the explanatory power of value differences for economic development and find a close association between bilateral value distances and differences in GDP per capita.
Does Compulsory Voting Increase Support for Leftist Policy in Referendums?
Michael M. Bechtel, Dominik Hangartner, Lukas Schmid
American Journal of Political Science. 2016.
Citizens unequally participate in referendums and this may systematically bias policy in favor of those who vote. Some view compulsory voting as an important tool to alleviate this problem while others worry about its detrimental effects on the legitimacy and quality of democratic decision-making. So far, however, we lack systematic knowledge about the causal effect of compulsory voting on public policy. We argue that sanctioned compulsory voting mobilizes citizens at the bottom of the income distribution and that this translates into an increase in support for left policies. We empirically explore the effects of a sanctioned compulsory voting law on direct-democratic decision-making in Switzerland. We find that compulsory voting significantly increases electoral support for left policy positions in referendums by up to 20 percentage points. We discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of the policy consequences of electoral institutions.
Media coverage: The Economist New York Times Monkey Cage Tagesanzeiger
Do Professionals Get It Right? Limited Attention and Risk-Taking Behaviour
Reto Föllmi, Stefan Legge, Lukas Schmid
Economic Journal. 2016.
Does information processing affect individual risk-taking behaviour? This article provides evidence that professional athletes suffer from a left-digit bias when dealing with signals about differences in performance. Using data from the highly competitive field of World Cup alpine skiing for the period of 1992–2014, we show that athletes misinterpret actual differences in race times by focusing on the leftmost digit, which results in increased risk-taking behaviour. For the estimation of causal effects, we exploit the fact that tiny time differences can be attributed to random shocks. We find no evidence that high-stakes situations or individual experience reduce the left-digit bias.
Paper. Replication archive (zip file).
Media coverage: LSE Business Review
MEDIA ATTENTION AND BETTING MARKETS
STEFAN LEGGE AND LUKAS SCHMID
European Economic Review. 2016.
This paper investigates whether biased media attention affects perceptions about future events. We use data on World Cup tournaments in alpine skiing for the period of 1992-2014 and exploit close races as a source of randomness for ranking positions. Our results document that ranking positions generate sharp discontinuities in media attention even in close races. However, both regression discontinuity and instrumental variables estimates reveal that biased media attention neither affects prices nor quantities in the betting market. We conduct a series of robustness tests to explore the sensitivity of our results.