Yani Kartalis, from ICS, presented a chapter from his thesis. The abstract reads:
“Do macro-economic conditions affect legislators’ representative focus? This article examines this novel predictor by analyzing an original dataset of parliamentary questions from the Greek parliament. Greece is a very informative case since not only is the country most severely hit by the recent Eurozone Crisis but it also offers an institutional setting that provides plenty of incentives to re-election-seeking actors for constituency-focused representative work. The data utilized covers an extended period of six Greek legislatures and over 12000 parliamentary current questions asked pre, during and post-crisis between 2006 and 2019. The stand-alone effect of macro-economic conditions as well as its interaction with known predictors like the legislators’ vulnerability are tested. Findings provide evidence that a better national economic performance conditions increase the likelihood that MPs with table current questions about their constituency, although other traditional factors are more important.”
