Political Turnover, Bureaucratic Turnover, and the Quality of Public Services

Mitra Akhtari, Diana Moreira and Laura Trucco

Working Paper from Harvard University OpenScholar

Abstract: We study how political party changes in mayoral elections in Brazil affect the provision of public education. Exploiting a regression discontinuity design for close elections, we find that municipalities with a new party in office have test scores that are 0.07 standard deviations lower than comparable municipalities with no change in the political party. Party turnover leads to a sharp increase in the replacement rate of headmasters and teachers in schools controlled by the municipality. In contrast, we show that changes in the party of the mayor do not impact the rate of replacement of school personnel or student test scores for local (non-municipal) schools that are not controlled by the municipal government. The findings suggest that political turnover in Brazilian municipalities negatively impacts student outcomes through political discretion over the municipal education bureaucracy. Political turnover can adversely affect the quality of public service provision in environments where the bureaucracy is not shielded from the political process.

Date: 2016-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-pol and nep-ure
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Journal Article: Political Turnover, Bureaucratic Turnover, and the Quality of Public Services (2022)
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