The importance of electoral rule: Evidence from Italy

We employ bootstrap methods (Efron (1979)) to test the e ect of an important electoral reform implemented in Italy from 1993 to 2001, that moved the system for electing the Par- liament from purely proportional to plurality rule (for 75% of the seats). We do not nd any e ect on either the number of parties or the stability of governments (the two main objectives of the reform) that remained unchanged at their pre-reform level.