Political Turnover, Bureaucratic Turnover, and the Quality of Public Services
Abstract: We study how political turnover in mayoral elections in Brazil affects public service provision by local governments. Exploiting a regression discontinuity design for close elections, we find that municipalities with a new party in office subsequently appoint new personnel to the municipal bureaucracy across the board: across multiple service sectors, and at both managerial and non-managerial levels. In education, the sharp increase in the replacement rate of personnel in schools controlled by the municipal government is also accompanied by test scores that are .05-.08 standard deviations lower. In contrast, turnover of the mayor's party does not impact local (non-municipal) schools. These findings suggest that political turnover can adversely affect the quality of public services when the bureaucracy is not shielded from the political process.
