Electoral Competition and Local Government Responsiveness in Brazil

Arvate, Paulo Roberto

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1824557

Cited by 7 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…This is comparable in magnitude-though oppositely signed-to effect sizes reported in the literature from other settings. For example, Hatfield and Kosec (2013) and Arvate (2013) examine the effects of political competition on public goods provision in the United States and in Brazil, respectively. They estimate that a standard deviation increase in competition is on average associated with a 0.142 and a 0.050 standard deviation increase in public goods outcomes, respectively.…”

Section: Effects Of Competition On Public Goods Provisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Countervailing Effects of Competition on Public Goods Provision: When Bargaining Inefficiencies Lead to Bad Outcomes

Gottlieb

Kosec²

2018

Am Polit Sci Rev

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Political competition is widely recognized as a mediator of public goods provision through its salutary effect on incumbents’ electoral incentives. We argue that political competition additionally mediates public goods provision by reducing the efficiency of legislative bargaining. These countervailing forces may produce a net negative effect in places with weak parties and low transparency—typical of many young democracies. We provide evidence of a robust negative relationship between political competition and local public goods using panel data from Mali. Tests of mechanisms corroborate our interpretation of this relationship as evidence of legislative bargaining inefficiencies. To explore the generalizability of these findings, we analyze cross-country panel data and show that political competition leads to better (worse) public goods provision under high (low) levels of party system institutionalization. The paper sheds light on why political competition is only selectively beneficial, and underscores the importance of considering both the electoral and legislative arenas.

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Section: Effects Of Competition On Public Goods Provisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 (Ashworth et al 2014;Besley, Persson, and Sturm 2010;Binzer Hobolt and Klemmensen 2008;Boyne et al 2012). 5 (Arvate 2013;Crost and Kambhampati 2010;Hecock 2006;Kosec et al 2018). the opposite (or no) relationship. 6 Few studies have examined this relationship in low-income democracies like Mali, adding to the novelty of our study.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Countervailing Effects of Competition on Public Goods Provision: When Bargaining Inefficiencies Lead to Bad Outcomes

Gottlieb

Kosec²

2018

Am Polit Sci Rev

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“…12 Arvate (2013) …nds a related result when studying local governments in Brazil, which are unable to borrow freely in the market and display varying levels of political competition. There is also an empirical literature investigating the e¤ects of political turnover on economic performance indirectly, by looking at how it a¤ects government expenditures and the public debt.…”

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confidence: 91%

The Limits of Political Compromise: Debt Ceilings and Political Turnover

Cunha

Ornelas²

2017

Journal of the European Economic Association

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. We study the desirability of limits on the public debt and of political turnover in an economy where incumbents have an incentive to set public expenditures above the socially optimal level due to rent-seeking motives. Parties alternate in office and cannot commit to future policies, but they can forge a political compromise where each party curbs excessive spending when in office if it expects future governments to do the same. In contrast to the received literature, we find that strict limits on government borrowing can exacerbate political economy distortions by making a political compromise unsustainable. This tends to happen when political turnover is limited. Conversely, a tight limit on the public debt fosters a compromise that yields the efficient outcome if political turnover is vigorous. Our analysis thus suggests that to sustain good economic policies, a society needs to restrict either the extent of political turnover or the ability of governments to issue debt, but not both. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Codes: E610, E620, H300, H630.

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“…2 Other studies have examined the relationship between political competition and other outcome variables: for example, economic performance (Padovano and Ricciuti, 2009), government efficiency (Ashworth et al, 2014), land supply (Solé-Ollé and Viladecans-Marsal, 2012), political rent (Svaleryd and Vlachos, 2009) and service delivery (Arvate, 2013;Nye and Vasilyeva, 2015). elections.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The main contribution of this study is that it empirically tests the role of political competition in economic performance and policy choice (Besley et al, 2010;Padovano and Ricciuti, 2009;Ashworth et al, 2014;Svaleryd and Vlachos, 2009;Solé-Ollé and Viladecans-Marsal, 2012;Arvate, 2013;Nye and Vasilyeva, 2015), specifically in the developing country of Indonesia. Moreover, this study constructs and documents a new dataset on the degree of political competition in Indonesia at the district level since the reformation period.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Competition and Local Government Performance: Evidence from Indonesia

Rezki¹

2018

Preprint

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This paper analyses the impact of political competition on local government performance in Indonesia. This study uses a new database that covers 427 districts in Indonesia, from 2000 to 2013. In Indonesia, local governments are largely responsible for fulfilling basic service delivery and, in this regard, they are extremely powerful. Political competition is measured using the Herfindahl Hirschman Concentration Index for the district parliament election. This variable is potentially endogenous, because political competition is likely to be non-random and correlated with unobservable variables. To solve this problem, I use the lag of political competition for neighbouring districts within the same province, as well as the political competition from the 1955 general election, as instrumental variables for political competition. The degree of political competition has been found to boost real Regional Gross Domestic Product (RGDP) per capita by 1.9%. Furthermore, a one standard deviation increase in political competition would increase RGDP growth by approximately 0.81%. The results also support the findings of previous studies, which have found that stiffer political competition is associated with higher public spending (e.g. infrastructure spending) and pro-business policies.

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Electoral Competition and Local Government Responsiveness in Brazil

Cited by 7 publications

References 39 publications

The Countervailing Effects of Competition on Public Goods Provision: When Bargaining Inefficiencies Lead to Bad Outcomes

The Countervailing Effects of Competition on Public Goods Provision: When Bargaining Inefficiencies Lead to Bad Outcomes

The Limits of Political Compromise: Debt Ceilings and Political Turnover

Political Competition and Local Government Performance: Evidence from Indonesia

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