Mayoral Partisanship and the Size of Municipal Government
Does it matter for municipal policy which party controls the mayorship in municipal government? The bulk of the existing evidence says no. But there are a variety of theoretical reasons to believe that mayoral partisanship should affect municipal policy. We examine the impact of mayoral partisanship...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
University of Chicago Press
2017
|
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107802 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2751-379X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4716-2106 |
| _version_ | 1826202225692639232 |
|---|---|
| author | De Benedictis-Kessner, Justin Warshaw, Christopher S |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science De Benedictis-Kessner, Justin Warshaw, Christopher S |
| author_sort | De Benedictis-Kessner, Justin |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Does it matter for municipal policy which party controls the mayorship in municipal government? The bulk of the existing evidence says no. But there are a variety of theoretical reasons to believe that mayoral partisanship should affect municipal policy. We examine the impact of mayoral partisanship in nearly 1,000 elections in medium and large cities over the past 60 years. In contrast to previous work, we find that mayoral partisanship has a significant impact on the size of municipal government. Democratic mayors spend substantially more than Republican mayors. In order to pay for this spending, Democratic mayors issue substantially more debt than Republican mayors and pay more in interest. Our findings show that mayoral partisanship matters for city policy. Our findings add to a growing literature indicating that the constraints imposed on city policy making do not prevent public opinion and elections from having a meaningful impact on municipal policy. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:04:10Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/107802 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:04:10Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | University of Chicago Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1078022022-09-27T23:55:03Z Mayoral Partisanship and the Size of Municipal Government De Benedictis-Kessner, Justin Warshaw, Christopher S Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science De Benedictis-Kessner, Justin Warshaw, Christopher S Does it matter for municipal policy which party controls the mayorship in municipal government? The bulk of the existing evidence says no. But there are a variety of theoretical reasons to believe that mayoral partisanship should affect municipal policy. We examine the impact of mayoral partisanship in nearly 1,000 elections in medium and large cities over the past 60 years. In contrast to previous work, we find that mayoral partisanship has a significant impact on the size of municipal government. Democratic mayors spend substantially more than Republican mayors. In order to pay for this spending, Democratic mayors issue substantially more debt than Republican mayors and pay more in interest. Our findings show that mayoral partisanship matters for city policy. Our findings add to a growing literature indicating that the constraints imposed on city policy making do not prevent public opinion and elections from having a meaningful impact on municipal policy. 2017-03-31T16:36:04Z 2017-03-31T16:36:04Z 2016-08 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0022-3816 1468-2508 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107802 de Benedictis-Kessner, Justin, and Christopher Warshaw. “Mayoral Partisanship and Municipal Fiscal Policy.” The Journal of Politics 78.4 (2016): 1124–1138. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2751-379X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4716-2106 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/686308 Journal of Politics Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf University of Chicago Press MIT Web Domain |
| spellingShingle | De Benedictis-Kessner, Justin Warshaw, Christopher S Mayoral Partisanship and the Size of Municipal Government |
| title | Mayoral Partisanship and the Size of Municipal Government |
| title_full | Mayoral Partisanship and the Size of Municipal Government |
| title_fullStr | Mayoral Partisanship and the Size of Municipal Government |
| title_full_unstemmed | Mayoral Partisanship and the Size of Municipal Government |
| title_short | Mayoral Partisanship and the Size of Municipal Government |
| title_sort | mayoral partisanship and the size of municipal government |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107802 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2751-379X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4716-2106 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT debenedictiskessnerjustin mayoralpartisanshipandthesizeofmunicipalgovernment AT warshawchristophers mayoralpartisanshipandthesizeofmunicipalgovernment |