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Essays in Applied Economics
Šoltés, Michal ; Matějka, Filip (advisor) ; Drago, Francesco Drago (referee) ; Engel, Christoph (referee)
In the first chapter, we study the role of political parties in the selection of candidates in Czech municipal elections. Using over 20,000 electoral slates, we document that political parties rank candidates on the slates according to their valence and intra-party value. Valence, measured by education level, captures the public value of the candidates, while intra-party value, measured by political donations and membership, represents the value of the candidate to the party. The patterns we observe are consistent with market mechanisms between candidates and party leaders where the party leaders benefit from the valence and intra-party value of candidates and offer slate positions (i.e. the probability of winning a mandate) in exchange. We show that candidates with high valence and those who possess more intra-party value are placed in better ranked positions, despite the fact that candidates with more intra-party value, conditional on observables, tend to receive relatively fewer votes than candidates with low intra-party value. We also show that as a party expects to hold more council seats, the share of their candidates with higher intra-party value increases. In the second chapter, we study the implications of a structure of the criminal justice system on sentencing decisions. To limit...
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