Do Electoral Rules Make Legislators Differently Responsive to Fiscal Transfers? Evidence from German Municipalities

Konferenzbeitrag

The paper empirically analyzes whether electoral rules make legislators differently responsive to changes in fiscal incentives. Key to the analysis are two unique reforms in the German state of Lower Saxony which changed (i) the municipal charter by replacing the council-manager system (featuring appointed mayors) by a mayor-council system (with directly-elected mayors) and (ii) the fiscal incentives inherent to the equalization system. We find that municipalities with appointed mayors react less strongly to changes in fiscal incentives. The change in municipal tax rates is three times smaller compared with a system of direct mayoral elections. We point to the different electoral incentives of mayors in the two systems to explain the result.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2013: Wettbewerbspolitik und Regulierung in einer globalen Wirtschaftsordnung - Session: Electoral Control ; No. B03-V1

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation ; State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations: General ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Köthenbürger, Marko ; Egger, Peter ; Smart, Michael
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
• (where): Kiel und Hamburg
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/79972
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET