Research

Abstract : Natural disasters and related prevention policies can affect voter decisions. In this study, we analyze how the occurrence of natural disasters changes voters’ behavior at municipal elections and how prevention policies can mitigate the impact of such catastrophic events on budget accounts and might potentially be rewarded by citizens in upcoming elections. We exploit original data on French municipalities where incumbents sought reelection between 2008 and 2020. To estimate the probability of re-election at the municipal level in the event of a natural disaster we apply a Heckman model based strategy to avoid selection bias. We find that the occurrence of natural disasters significantly decreases the chances of re-election of incumbent mayors. However, although we show that natural hazard prevention plans significantly mitigate the impact of catastrophic events on budget accounts, citizens do not reward such prevention policies in upcoming elections. We confirm the hypothesis of myopia: voters reward incumbents for delivering investment spending or decreasing debt but not for investing in spending on disaster preparedness.