2026-04-13T13:44:28Zhttps://recercat.cat/oai/request

oai:recercat.cat:2445/1647332025-12-05T04:24:39Zcom_2072_1057col_2072_478809col_2072_478917

Do national political parties matter? Evidence from Italian municipalities Gamalerio, Matteo Partits polítics Disciplina de partit Responsabilitat fiscal Administració municipal Itàlia Political parties Party discipline Fiscal responsibility Municipal government Italy Recently several countries have experienced a drop in popularity of national political parties, accompanied by the success of independent movements (e.g. 'Civic Lists' in Italy). I exploit the success of 'Civic Lists' in Italian municipalities and use them as a comparison group for party-affiliated politicians, to test whether national parties affect fiscal discipline. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD), I show that party-affiliated mayors are more fiscally responsible: they run lower deficits, accumulate less debt and reduce expenditures. The effect is significant only for municipalities not constrained by fiscal rules. This suggests that national parties act as a substitute for fiscal rules in constraining politicians. Besides, I provide evidence that the discipline of party-affiliated politicians is linked to better career prospects: party-affiliated mayors have a higher probability of being re-elected and better chances of being promoted to higher levels of government. Alternative stories find less support in the data. 2020-06-08T08:05:34Z 2023-06-30T05:10:19Z 2020-06 2020-06-08T08:05:34Z info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion Versió postprint del document publicat a: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2020.101862 European Journal of Political Economy, 2020, vol. 63, num. 101862 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2020.101862 cc-by-nc-nd (c) Elsevier, 2020 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Elsevier Articles publicats en revistes (Economia)