1. Introduction
Elections are citizens' means to hold the government
accountable for the economic, social, and institutional
development of the country. A vast majority of electoral
research focuses on the role of the economy and less on the
importance of good governance, with some exceptions in
recent years. Regarding the impact of governance, researchers
look at corruption as a proxy for bad governance,
and conclude that incumbents are punished for corruption
only if they also underperform economically. This paper
extends this research by considering the role of overall
quality of governance in elections, and examines the conjuncted
trade-off between good governance and the
economy in countries with different levels of economic
development. The results show that good governance and
the economy moderate each others' effect, and contrary to
the results in studies of corruption, incumbents are punished
for bad governance even when there is economic