Arbeitspapier
Political budget cycles with informed voters: Evidence from Italy
I exploit a reform that required Italian municipalities to disclose their balance sheetsbefore elections to study whether having more informed voters aects the political budgetcycle. To start, investment spending in the year before elections is 28.5% higher thanin the election year and this increase is mainly financed with new debt and sales of publicassets. Taking advantage of the staggered timing of municipal elections, I estimate thatthe reform reduced this pre-electoral spending increase by around one-third. I also study the role of local newspapers in disseminating municipal financial information to votersand I find that the reduction in spending after the reform is twice as strong in provinceswith above-median local newspapers sales per capita. I interpret these results as evidencethat mayors react to more informed voters by reducing spending manipulation.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: Working Paper ; No. 2016:6
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Fiscal Policy
Capitalist Systems: Political Economy
- Subject
-
Information
Political budget cycles
accountability
Italian municipalities
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Repetto, Luca
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Uppsala University, Department of Economics
- (where)
-
Uppsala
- (when)
-
2016
- Handle
- URN
-
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-294526
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Repetto, Luca
- Uppsala University, Department of Economics
Time of origin
- 2016
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