Electoral incentives to target investment in roads: Evidence from Italian municipalities

IF 2.3 3区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

European Journal of Political Economy Pub Date : 2024-08-01 DOI:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102589

Massimiliano Ferraresi , Leonzio Rizzo , Riccardo Secomandi

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Abstract

Using a comprehensive dataset on Italian municipalities, we test whether investments in road services are affected by political manipulations motivated by the need of targeting a specific group of voters (construction firms). We show that road services investment in the year before election is 26% higher in municipalities with low density of construction firms and 40% higher in municipalities with high density of construction firms than in the electoral year. This result is confirmed by the fact that in the pre-electoral year the probability that public procurement on road services is assigned to a local firm increases by 52 percentage points with respect to the electoral year, for municipalities with high density of construction firms. Finally, we do not detect any relationship between investments in road services and the local road safety. These findings suggest that politicians manipulate investments in road services for re-electoral purposes.

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针对道路投资的选举激励：来自意大利市政当局的证据

我们利用意大利市政当局的综合数据集，检验了道路服务投资是否会受到以特定选民群体（建筑公司）为目标的政治操纵的影响。我们发现，与选举年相比，建筑公司密度低的市政当局在选举前一年的道路服务投资高出 26%，而建筑公司密度高的市政当局则高出 40%。这一结果得到了以下事实的证实：在选举前一年，与选举年相比，建筑公司密度高的市镇将道路服务的公共采购分配给本地公司的概率增加了 52 个百分点。最后，我们没有发现道路服务投资与当地道路安全之间存在任何关系。这些研究结果表明，政治家出于连任的目的操纵道路服务投资。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

European Journal of Political Economy Multiple-

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

10.00%

发文量

106

期刊介绍： The aim of the European Journal of Political Economy is to disseminate original theoretical and empirical research on economic phenomena within a scope that encompasses collective decision making, political behavior, and the role of institutions. Contributions are invited from the international community of researchers. Manuscripts must be published in English. Starting 2008, the European Journal of Political Economy is indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index published by Thomson Scientific (formerly ISI).