caa a22 4500 606168141 CHVBK 20210128100705.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11127-014-0189-8 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11127-014-0189-8 Signature requirements and citizen initiatives: Quasi-experimental evidence from Germany [Elektronische Daten] [Felix Arnold, Ronny Freier] Signature requirements are often used as hurdles to prevent overuse of direct democratic instruments such as citizen initiatives. We evaluate the causal effect of lowering signature requirements on the number of observed citizen initiative petitions. Based on municipal-level data for Germany, we make use of changes in signature requirements that occur at specific population thresholds to build an identification strategy using a regression discontinuity design. We find that reducing the signature requirement by 1% point increases the probability of observing an initiative petition in a given city-year by 8-10% points. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2014 Signature requirements nationallicence Citizen initiatives nationallicence Municipality data nationallicence Regression discontinuity design nationallicence Arnold Felix Freie Universität Berlin, DIW Berlin, Boltzmannstrasse 20, 14195, Berlin, Germany aut Freier Ronny DIW Berlin, Mohrenstrasse 58, 10117, Berlin, Germany aut Public Choice Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 162/1-2(2015-01-01), 43-56 0048-5829 162:1-2<43 2015 162 11127 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-014-0189-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-014-0189-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Arnold Felix Freie Universität Berlin, DIW Berlin, Boltzmannstrasse 20, 14195, Berlin, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Freier Ronny DIW Berlin, Mohrenstrasse 58, 10117, Berlin, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Public Choice Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 162/1-2(2015-01-01), 43-56 0048-5829 162:1-2<43 2015 162 11127