You want me, but I no longer want you. The punishment-reward mechanism and institutional quality in Italian regions

ABSTRACTFollowing the principal theory concerning the foundations of voting behaviour it is possible to assert that citizens hold politicians and their parties accountable through their votes. From this perspective, if citizens perceive the quality of local institutions to be a result of the policies enacted by local authorities they may punish or reward the incumbent parties. By means of a quantitative approach, our results, based on the analysis of 15 different election rounds, show that various dimensions of institutional quality impact voting behaviour in Italian provinces. The punishment-reward mechanism suggests that political preferences change because local institutions lack quality.KEYWORDS: Punishment-reward mechanismquality of institutionsvoting behaviourItalian provinces Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Compliance with ethical standardsThe authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. All co-authors have seen and agree with the contents of the manuscript and there is no financial interest to report. We certify that the submission is original work and is not under review for any other publication.Additional informationNotes on contributorsMarzia IppolitoMarzia Ippolito is a research fellow at the University of Basilicata - Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Economics. Her research focuses on public economy; data analysis and quantitative methods; economic inequality, and political and economic trends in the European Union.Salvatore ErcolanoSalvatore Ercolano is Associate Professor of political economy at the University of Basilicata. His research focuses on political economy; public economics; environmental economics; cultural economics, and the evaluation of public policies.Lorenzo CicatielloLorenzo Cicatiello is Assistant Professor of economics in the Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Naples L’Orientale. His research focuses on transparency, institutions and political participation.