Young Politicians and Long-Term Policy

Ricardo Dahis, Ivan de las Heras and Santiago Saavedra

Working papers from Red Investigadores de Economía

Abstract: A fundamental difficulty in policy-making is that policies often have costs today but benefits far into the future. This difficulty is particularly salient to climate change and environmental conservation policy. A critical dimension in this trade-off is the age of politicians, which impacts their life expectancy, career concerns, and what education they received. We study this trade-off in the case of Brazilian mayors and environmental outcomes, using a regression discontinuity design for close elections. We find that when a young politician is elected, there is a reduction in deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, without significant effects on municipal gross domestic product. Young politicians allocate more spending to education and reducing liabilities, suggesting that the time horizon is important. Our study of mechanisms suggests young mayors matter because they belong to a new cohort, not because of age per se.

Keywords: Deforestation; Politicans' Age (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P18 Q23 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48
Date: 2023-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-pol
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Working Paper: Young Politicians and Long-Term Policy (2023)
Working Paper: Young Politicians and Long-Term Policy (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rie:riecdt:102

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