TY - JOUR A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Blaydes, Lisa T1 - Counting Calories: Democracy and Distribution in the Developing World JF - International Studies Quarterly N2 - How does regime type affect the poor? Are certain types of regimes better at translating economic growth into consumption for the world's least privileged citizens? We propose an alternative measure of transfers to the poor that is nearly universally available and innately captures distribution: average daily calorie consumption. In sharp contrast to the consumption of material goods or the accumulation of wealth for which humans have shown no upper bound on their ability to achieve, biological limits make it impossible for a small number of individuals to consume most of a nation's calories. Democracies and hybrid regimes—which combine elements of autocracy and democracy—are better at translating economic growth into total calorie consumption than autocracies and perform strikingly similarly in this regard; democracies outperform both hybrid regimes and autocracies, however, in converting growth into higher quality calories from animal sources. Y1 - 2011 UR - http://www.researchgate.net/publication/227697759_Counting_Calories_Democracy_and_Distribution_in_the_Developing_World1 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00692.x SN - 1468-2478 VL - 55 IS - 4 SP - 887 EP - 908 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Leininger, Arndt T1 - Eine länderbasierte Prognose zur Bundestagswahl 2017 JF - Politische Vierteljahresschrift N2 - When elections are distant, polls are poor predictors. Too few voters are paying attention and too much can change before election day. Structural models can establish baseline expectations but suffer from high uncertainty and underspecification imposed by small samples. We present an early forecast of the 2017 Bundestag election results for individual parties that leverages economic and political data as well as state parliament (Landtag) election results in the German states (Länder) to sidestep these shortcomings. A linear random effects model provides our estimates. Länder elections are dispersed over the calendar and offer the advantage of capturing both actual voter preferences and new political issues. We argue that this approach offers a promising method for early forecasts when polls are not informative. KW - Elections KW - forecasting KW - parties KW - Germany Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5771/0032-3470-2017-3-407 SN - 0032-3470 IS - 58(3) SP - 407 EP - 417 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Rehmert, Jochen T1 - Coalition Prospects and Policy Change: An Application to the Environment JF - Legislative Studies Quarterly N2 - In most developed democracies, parties adjust their positions to polls and public opinion. Yet, in a coalition government, the policy that emerges is often the outcome of negotiations between governing parties. We argue that the credibility of exit threats by current coalition members and the importance of outside parties for the formation of potential alternative coalitions both matter for policy adoption. Building on a new data set measuring the expected coalition‐inclusion probabilities of parties in parliamentary democracies, we estimate the effect of coalition prospects on an important policy outcome—environmental policy stringency—in nine European countries between 1990 and 2012. Our findings demonstrate that only polling shifts that alter coalition probabilities affect outcomes. Changes in the coalition‐inclusion probability of green parties—regardless of whether they are in government—predict changes in the environmental policy stringency of sitting governments. Political polls, in contrast, do not. KW - - KW - coalitions KW - coalition bargaining KW - coalition‐inclusion probabilities KW - environmental policy KW - policy change Y1 - 2020 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-36133 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12273 SN - 1939-9162 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Peress, Michael T1 - Does the Media Cover the Economy Accurately? Evidence from Sixteen Developed Democracies. JF - Quarterly Journal of Political Science N2 - Can voters learn what they need to learn to hold governments accountable for theeconomy through news coverage? Employing the first large-scale cross-nationaldataset of media coverage of the economy—over 2 million machine-coded articlesrelated to three economic indicators in 32 mainstream newspapers, one left-wingand one right-wing, in 16 developed countries and six languages—we investigatemedia coverage of the economy that bears implications for electoral accountabilityand partisan advantage. We find that the tone of most mainstream newspaperstracks the economy faithfully, although the frequency of coverage increases withnegative outcomes. While we find some evidence for partisan bias in tone forgrowth headlines and in frequency of coverage for unemployment articles, itssubstantive magnitude is diminutive. Mainstream newspaper coverage providesvoters with largely accurate information. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1561/100.00019098 VL - 16 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 33 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Orlowski, Matthias A1 - Rehmert, Jochen T1 - Coalition inclusion probabilities: a party-strategic measure for predicting policy and politics JF - Political Science Research and Methods N2 - Policy in coalition governments (a) depends on negotiations between parties that (b) continue between elections. No extant means of predicting policy—bargaining power indices, vote shares, seat shares, polling, veto players or measures of electoral competitiveness—recognizes both of these facts. We conceptualize, estimate and validate the first dynamic measure of parties’ bargaining leverage intended to predict policy and politics. We argue that those parties with the greatest leverage in policy negotiations are those with the highest probability of participating in an alternative government, were one to form. Combining a large set of political polls and an empirical coalition formation model developed with out-of-sample testing, we estimate coalition inclusion probabilities for parties in a sample of 21 parliamentary democracies at a monthly frequency over four decades. Applications to government spending and to the stringency of environmental policy show leverage from coalition inclusion probabilities to be strongly predictive while the primary alternatives—vote shares, seat shares and polls—are not. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2021.75 VL - 11 IS - 2 SP - 328 EP - 346 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Franchino, Fabio A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Wratil, Christopher T1 - Electoral competitiveness and responsiveness: rational anticipation in the EU Council JF - Journal of European Public Policy Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2021.1991986 N1 - Published online: 03 Nov 2021 VL - 29 IS - 1 SP - 42 EP - 60 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Leininger, Arndt A1 - Murr, Andreas E. A1 - Stötzer, Lukas A1 - Kayser, Mark A. T1 - Citizen forecasting in a mixed electoral system. The 2021 German federal election as a test case. JF - International Journal of Forecasting N2 - Existing studies show that aggregating citizens’ expectations about who will win can predict election outcomes in a majoritarian system. But can so-called citizen forecasting also successfully predict outcomes in mixed-member systems, where constituency results are less important? The existing evidence is mixed and limited in scope. We conducted, therefore, a citizen forecast of the 2021 German federal election by administering an original survey asking citizens who they thought would win in their constituency, what share of the vote each candidate would win in their constituency, and what share of the vote each party would win nationally. Citizens predicted constituency winners and vote shares more accurately than several benchmarks. However, our citizen forecast was based on a non-representative sample from an online-access panel. We conclude that citizen forecasting provides a simple and inexpensive way to predict the various relevant outcomes in mixed-member elections. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2025.03.007 SN - 0169-2070 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Leininger, Arndt T1 - A Laender-Based Forecast of the 2017 German Bundestag Election JF - PS: Political Science & Politics Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096517000427 VL - 50 IS - 3 SP - 689 EP - 692 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Leininger, Arndt A1 - Vlasenko, Anastasiia T1 - A Länder-Based Forecast of the 2021 German Bundestag Election JF - PS: Political Science & Politics Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096521000974 VL - 55 IS - 1 SP - 79 EP - 84 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Leininger, Arndt ED - Hellwig, Timothy ED - Singer, Matthew T1 - The Economy and Chancellor Approval in Germany: A Cautionary Tale about Data Vintages and Measurement T2 - Economics and Politics Revisited: Executive Approval and the New Calculus of Support Y1 - 2023 SN - 9780192871664 PB - Oxford University Press ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jacobs, Alan M. A1 - Kayser, Mark A. T1 - Downward Mobility and Far-Right Party Support: Broad Evidence JF - Comparative Political Studies N2 - Much debate has centered on the relative effects of economic and cultural factors on support for far-right parties. Recent work, however, has proposed a synthesis focused on the role of social status, a concept capturing a combination of economic position and social esteem. While previous studies have adduced suggestive evidence that status loss shapes far-right support, this paper presents the broadest empirical assessment of the proposition to date. Focusing on long-term status change, operationalized as intergenerational occupational mobility, we find a strong relationship between mobility and support for the far right across 11 European countries. Moreover, adopting a modeling approach that addresses confounding between status levels and status change, we demonstrate an asymmetry: while downward mobility predicts increased far-right voting, upward mobility has little effect. The findings suggest that long-run economic forces that have depressed the occupational prospects of native-born workers contribute to the far right’s rise. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140251349663 PB - SAGE Publications ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Peress, Michael T1 - Do Voters Respond to the Economy or to News Reporting on the Economy? A Mediation Analysis JF - The Journal of Politics Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1086/734534 PB - The University of Chicago Press ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Leininger, Arndt A1 - Murr, Andreas E. A1 - Stoetzer, Lukas F. A1 - Kayser, Mark A. ED - Schoen, Harald ED - Weßels, Bernhard T1 - Bürger:innenprognosen in einem Mischwahlsystem: Die deutsche Bundestagswahl 2021 als Testfall T2 - Wahlen und Wähler N2 - Wie viele Wahlkreise gewinnt welche Partei bei der Bundestagswahl? Diese Frage war im Vorfeld der Bundestagswahl 2021 trotz des deutschen Mischwahlsystems unter Fachleuten wie auch einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit von besonderem Interesse. Diesem Bedarf an Vorhersagen bedient in jüngerer Zeit eine zunehmende Zahl von Prognosemodellen, die sich jedoch fast ausschließlich auf die Zweitstimme abzielen. Für Wahlkreise gibt es nicht nur in Deutschland, sondern auch in reinen Mehrheitswahlsystemen, kaum relevante Umfragen. Wir führten daher eine Wahlerwartungsumfrage durch, um den Wahlausgang in jedem einzelnen Bundestagswahlkreis zu prognostizieren. Wir nennen unseren Ansatz Bürger:innenprognose, weil er auf den Erwartungen der Bürger:innen über das Wahlverhalten ihrer Mitbürger:innen beruht und nicht auf deren selbstberichteten Wahlabsichten. In diesem Beitrag stellen wir unsere Bürger:innenprognose vor, evaluieren ihre Genauigkeit und vergleichen sie mit anderen Ansätzen zur Wahlprognose. Y1 - 2024 SN - 9783658426934 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42694-1_15 SP - 383 EP - 411 PB - Springer VS CY - Wiesbaden ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stoetzer, Lukas F. A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Leininger, Arndt A1 - Murr, Andreas E. T1 - Voters’ Expectations in Constituency Elections without Local Polls JF - Public Opinion Quarterly N2 - How do voters form accurate expectations about the strength of political candidates in constituency elections if there are no reliable constituency polls available? We argue that voters can use national election polls and past election results to increase the accuracy of their expectations. A survey experiment during the German federal election of 2021 confirms that the provision of national election polls and past results increases the accuracy of voters’ expectations. The analysis further shows that voters leverage the information to update their beliefs. The results have relevant implications for debates about belief formation in low-information environments. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfae015 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kayser, Mark A. A1 - Nalewajko, Kasia T1 - How Bad Can It Get? Polarization and the Public Interest When It Matters JF - British Journal of Political Science N2 - Scholars and political observers, alike, have associated political polarization with the weakening of democratic norms and the undermining of accountability, as partisans trade off the public interest against in-group loyalty. We probe how in-group bias shapes support for collective goods in actual high-stakes settings in an especially polarized democracy. Conducting survey experiments in Poland, we examine two scenarios: electoral integrity during the 2023 parliamentary election that could have entrenched authoritarian rule and national security after Russia’s 2022 invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Our findings show pronounced partisan bias undermining support for electoral integrity – approximately 40 per cent of party supporters with an average level of partisanship supported rerunning an election when their party unexpectedly lost – but less bias in judgments about national security, raising the possibility that individuals may view democracy as more of an instrumental than an intrinsic good. Y1 - 2026 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123425101257 N1 - Open Access publication is funded by the Hertie School Library. VL - 56 PB - Cambridge University Press (CUP) ER -