Does Opportunism Pay Off?
Linda Veiga and
Francisco Veiga
No 5/2006, NIPE Working Papers from NIPE - Universidade do Minho
Abstract:
This article tests the hypothesis that the opportunistic manipulation of financial accounts by mayors increases their chances of re-election. Working with a large and detailed dataset comprising all Portuguese mainland municipalities, which covers the municipal elections that took place from 1979 to 2001, we clearly show that increases in investment expenditures and changes in the composition of spending favouring highly visible items are associated with higher vote percentages for incumbent mayors seeking re-election. Our results also indicate that the political payoff to opportunistic spending increased after democracy became well-established in the country.
Keywords: Voting functions; opportunism; local governments; elections; Portugal. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pbe, nep-pol and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www3.eeg.uminho.pt/economia/nipe/docs/2006/NIPE_WP_5_2006.PDF (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: Does opportunism pay off? (2007) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nip:nipewp:5/2006
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in NIPE Working Papers from NIPE - Universidade do Minho Núcleo de Investigação em Políticas Económicas e Empresariais, Escola de Economia e Gestão, Universidade do Minho, P-4710-057 Braga, Portugal. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by NIPE ().