Caroline Le Pennec

Moving toward the center How do politicians adjust their messages based on who they're running against?

Political candidates systematically move toward the political center between the first and second rounds of an election, say researchers at Harvard and @hec.ca. Their findings help confirm the forces behind the median voter theorem. #econsky www.aeaweb.org/research/cha...

We study changes in political discourse during campaigns, using a novel dataset of candidate websites for US House elections, 2002–2016, and manifestos for French parliamentary and local elections, 1958–2022. We find that candidates move to the center in ideology and rhetorical complexity between the first round (or primary) and the second round (or general election). This convergence reflects candidates' strategic adjustment to their opponents, as predicted by Downsian competition: Using an RDD we show that candidates converge to the platform of opponents who narrowly qualified for the last round as opposed to those who narrowly failed to qualify.

In @aeajournals.bsky.social AER, Rafael Di Tella, Randy Kotti, @clpennec.bsky.social, and @vinpons.bsky.social examine a new dataset of US and French candidate websites, finding that candidate ideologies move towards the center between primary and general elections.

www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Thrilled to see our paper published in the American Economic Review!! 👇👇👇
We show that candidates in US and French elections move to the center during the campaign, reflecting strategic adjustment to their opponents.
@aeajournals.bsky.social with R. Di Tella, R. Kotti and @clpennec.bsky.social (1/n)

The deadline is in 10 days! Submit your political economy papers to the second edition of T-PEC (London, 6-7 Nov): t.co/wroSY56WCS

The full paper is free to read for a limited time at: bit.ly/4n4Ca56. It is also available on my website: drive.google.com/file/d/1ko1o... 8/8

These results suggest that politicians follow their party line and do not flip-flop on policies. However, “high-quality” politicians with good rhetorical skills may strategically focus on non-policy issues when their party platform is not the most popular among voters. 7/8

Discourse moderation is not random. Candidates who enter the runoff with an electoral disadvantage are more likely to moderate than those who are very likely to win. Conditional on winning, MPs who moderated their discourse tend to be more productive in office. 6/8

Discourse moderation does not necessarily mean policy moderation. Instead, I find evidence that candidates switch from partisan policy issues to neutral non-policy issues (e.g., their personal attributes or ties to the local constituency). 5/8

Candidates moderate their discourse when they need to appeal to a broader set of voters. In the French two-round system, candidates who make it to the runoff issue a new manifesto before the second round. Those present in both rounds reduce their extremeness in the runoff. 4/8

Using text-as-data methods, I first show that candidates tend to follow the party line: their ideological tone is consistent with the ideological ranking of their parties, from left to right. 3/8

I study candidates' campaign strategies by exploiting a novel dataset of 30,000 campaign manifestos issued by French parliamentary candidates (1958-1993). These data provide a systematic record of the campaigns run by thousands of individual politicians at the local level. 2/8

Would politicians say anything to get elected? In practice, they face many constraints. For instance, adopting policy positions opposite to that of their party or contradicting their previous policy announcements may be costly. 1/8

This recent EJ Virtual Issue on Accountability and Electoral Selection features my (not-so-recent) JMP. A great opportunity to revisit an old thread!

Keep your Enemies Closer: Strategic Platform Adjustments during U.S. and French Elections (Forthcoming Article) - We study changes in political discourse during campaigns, using a novel dataset of candidate websites for U.S. House elections, 2002-2016, and manifestos for French parliamenta...

Neat and important paper
www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

🚨Call for papers!

We will be hosting this great workshop next autumn, organized by @clpennec.bsky.social, @nicolasajz.bsky.social and our own Cevat Aksoy.

Submit your best political economy work!

Call for papers! The second edition of the Transatlantic Political Economy Conference (T-PEC) will be held in London on Nov 6-7, 2025. Organized by @nicolasajz.bsky.social, Cevat Aksoy and myself.

The submission deadline is July 4. Apply here (and share widely):

sites.google.com/view/tpec-mo...

🚨 Call for papers! The second edition of the Transatlantic Political Economy Conference (T-PEC) will be in November in London. Organized by @clpennec.bsky.social Cevat Aksoy and me.

The submission deadline is July 4, 2025. Apply here (and RT!):

sites.google.com/view/tpec-mo...

A thread by @vinpons.bsky.social about our paper on coordination issues and incumbency advantage in multiparty systems, now forthcoming at @jeeanews.bsky.social 👇

Coordination and Incumbency Advantage in Multi-Party Systems—Evidence from French Elections Abstract. Free and fair elections should incentivize elected officials to exert effort and enable citizens to select representative politicians and occasio

Forthcoming article by Kevin Dano @francescoferlenga.bsky.social @vingalasso.bsky.social @clpennec.bsky.social and @vinpons.bsky.social "Coordination and Incumbency Advantage in Multi-Party Systems - Evidence from French Elections" @eeanews.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1093/jeea...

Our job in Political-Economy is still open! Montréal is a fantastic place to live.

Svp, envoyez-nous votre CV!

I am on the search committee for an applied microeconomist and happy to answer any questions about the job!

The Department of Applied Economics at HEC Montréal is hiring! Financial economics (e.g., macro finance, household finance) OR applied micro (e.g. IO, productivity, innovation). Apply here by November 17: econjobmarket.org/positions/9790 #econsky