One more time one more chance: election deposit refunds and politicians’ decisions to re-contest elections

Abstract

Prior research on election deposit refunds has often focused on national-level elections or used broad candidate classifications. This paper provides new evidence from the local level in Taiwan’s single non-transferable vote council elections, where party institutionalization is high. Using a regression discontinuity design, the paper finds that receiving a refund increases the probability of re-contesting by 4 percentage points. Although the main effect is not robust across specifications, we further examine heterogeneity across candidates’ gender and party affiliation. The results indicate that the positive and significant effect of refunds on re-contesting is concentrated among independent candidates. These findings suggest that election deposit refunds help mitigate disparities in party resources, thereby lowering barriers to re-entry into electoral competition.