Appointed Versus Elected Mayors and Incentives to Pork-Barrel: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Germany

Zohal Hessami

No 2014-23, Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz from Department of Economics, University of Konstanz

Abstract: Do incentives and policy choices of public officials depend on whether they are appointed by an elected body or directly elected by voters? I investigate this question using the example of state grants for highly visible municipal investment projects. To attract these grants, mayors must prepare and submit applications to the state government. My identification strategy exploits a natural experiment in a German state where mayor elections were gradually introduced. The difference-in-differences estimation results show that elected mayors attract 7 to 8% more investment grants from the state tier in election years, while for appointed mayors there is no cycle. Results based on hand-collected data for individual mayors exclude alternative transmission channels such as changes in (self-)selection of mayors or partisan alignment in grant allocation.

Keywords: Mayor elections; local government; electoral incentives; pork-barrel politics; intergovernmental grants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H72 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2014-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-eur and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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