A Monte Carlo model for the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico

The extant literature on the Mexican political system is often interested in analyzing the effect of electoral reforms, or some other contextual factor, on the political configuration of the Chamber of Deputies. From an empirical point of view, statistical estimation of such effects is a cumbersome task that requires some programming skills. In this research note we seek to contribute to the study of the Mexican electoral system and the Congress in two ways. First, we introduce a statistical model to analyze the composition of seats of the Mexican Chamber. Second, we facilitate the implementation of this model with the software camaradip, a Stata module developed by the authors that allows for the estimation of quantities of interest regarding the Chamber via Monte Carlo simulations. To illustrate the applicability of our model, we evaluate the hypotethical impact of two electoral reforms: the effect of making all local and federal elections concurrent, and the reduction of the number of proportional representation seats.