Does Electoral Competition Curb Party Favoritism?

Abstract

We study whether incumbents facing uncontested elections channel public spending toward co–partisan officials more than is the case of incumbents that are worried about reelection. We draw on data on capital transfers allocated by Spanish regions to local governments during 1995–2007. Using a regression discontinuity design, we document strong and robust effects. We find that a mayor belonging to the party of the regional president obtains twice the amount in grants received by an opposition’s mayor. This effect is much greater for regional incumbents that won the previous election by a large margin, but it disappears for highly competitive elections. (JEL D72, H76)

Reverse Party Favoritism in Times of Pandemics: Evidence from Poland

“…Likewise, in a recent study Swianiewicz (2020) shows that municipalities ruled by the PiS mayors enjoy disproportionately high transfers from the Local Governments Roads Fund (Fundusz Dróg Samorządowych). The second possible explanation is that aligned mayors may want to support the central government as they expect to be promoted within the party structures in the future (Curto-Grau et al, 2018). As it is rather difficult to empirically test the latter channel, in this paper the finding of political alignment would assume the presence of these two channels of transmission.…”

“…There are two possible explanations for what may lead the aligned mayors to support the central government. First, aligned mayors may want to return favors for their treatment by the central government which tends to allocate higher transfers to aligned localities (Brollo & Nannicini, 2012;Migueis, 2013;Bracco et al, 2015;Curto-Grau et al, 2018;Lara & Toro, 2019). In the Polish context this explanation seems to be plausible.…”

“…Namely, central governments may allocate the transfers to local governments in such a way as to maximize the electoral chances of aligned governments or to hamper the chances of unaligned ones (Larcinese et al, 2006;Solé-Ollé & Sorribas-Navarro, 2008). The expectation is, as the argument goes, that the aligned local governments may be important opinion leaders and may prove to be essential supporters of parties at the central level in the next national elections (Brollo & Nannicini, 2012;Migueis, 2013;Bracco et al, 2015;Curto-Grau et al, 2018;Lara E. & Toro M., 2019). Thus, targeting aligned localities with intergovernmental transfers pays off from the point of view of the central government as they may count on local governments' support in the subsequent central level elections.…”

Política Distributiva em Coalizão

“…Como mostram Larcinese et al (2006), por exemplo, pertencer ao partido na Presidência prediz um aumento de nada menos que 135 dólares per capita anuais nas receitas recebidas pelos estados americanos entre 1982 e 2000 (ver também Berry et al, 2010). Evidência de países tão diferentes como Chile, Espanha, Portugal, Reino Unido e Índia, além disso, mostram que esse viés partidário na alocação de recursos independe da composição do eleitorado -isto é, o compartilhamento de filiação entre políticos nacionais e locais causa distorções na alocação de bens públicos (Bohlken, 2018;Corvalan et al, 2018;Curto-Grau et al, 2018;Fouirnaies e Mutlu-Eren, 2015;Toro, 2019;Migueis, 2013;Sollé-Ollé e Sorribas-Navarro, 2008).…”

Better to be direct? Evidence from the abolition of direct elections in Italian local governments

“…municipal revenues, or winsorized (not log) variables, or when using SIOPE's measure of transfers only from local governments. 24 Some readers may be concerned that the reform not only reduced accountability to voters but also generated a new form of accountability to the new electors (mayors and councilors) who choose the president and thus fostered party favoritism (as in Curto-Grau et al, 2018). In the new provincial elections, municipal politicians vote based on party membership and many of them are replaced every year, so presidents have very weak incentives to win their vote and to maintain their favor in the long run.…”