Does Electoral Competition Curb Party Favoritism?

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 regre...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican economic journal. Applied economics Vol. 10; no. 4; pp. 378 - 407
Main Authors Curto-Grau, Marta, Solé-Ollé, Albert, Sorribas-Navarro, Pilar
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published American Economic Association 01.10.2018
Subjects
Anàlisi de regressió
Bias
Candidates
Capital transfers
Competition
Discontinuity
Economic theory
Eleccions
Elections
Government spending
Grants
Local government
Mayors
Partits polítics
Political parties
Proportional representation
Regression analysis
Representació proporcional
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary: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.
ISSN:1945-7782
1945-7790
DOI:10.1257/app.20160618