Abstract:
Can politicians gain votes by means of economic policy promises made during the election campaign? I tackle this question empirically by investigating voters' behavior in response to a a specific electoral announcement: Silvio Berlusconi's promise to abolish the property tax on main dwellings during the last days of campaign for the 2006 Italian general election. As homeowners would have been directly affected by the policy change, while renters would have not, I am able to estimate the electoral effect of the announcement using a Diff-in-Diff approach in two independent datasets: in a panel of municipalities, and using an electoral survey. Both exercises suggest that Berlusconi's announcement increased his vote share by a significant amount.
