No abstract

I examine the role of party dominance on elected politicians’ career path. Politicians’ career is divided between political and technical or administrative posts. To examine this relationship, I use data from the Mexican states over the period 2000‐2014. The paper exploits the 2008 US financial crisis as a source of exogenous variation in incumbents’ popularity level. Results support theoretical predictions that elected politicians’ profile in states with a dominant party changed more than in competitive states after the financial crisis. I find that after the 2008 US financial crisis, political experience of new elected governors in states with a dominant party decreased by 36 percentage points, on average, compared to states with no dominant party. Results are robust to different measures of political and technical or administrative career path.

No abstract

Do politicians from dominant parties choose different fiscal policies in response to an external economic shock than politicians from competitive parties? This paper argues that politicians from dominant parties might adopt different fiscal policies than politicians from competitive parties in response to an external economic shock. Politicians from dominant parties might enjoy a political advantage that allows them to underinvest in areas with low political gains compared to politicians from competitive parties and divert the money to policy areas more politically profitable. I examine my theoretical prediction using a panel data set of Mexican governors from 1995 to 2010.

No abstract