Does Political Competition Matter for Public Goods Provision?: Evidence from Russian Regions
Abstract: In an autocracy, does political competition always improve the provision of public goods? Do different mechanisms for selecting governors affect the amount provided? For 2004-2009, we use panel data for 74 Russian regions to study how the intensity of local political competition affects the amount of public goods that the governors provide. For each region, we measure political competition by the share of seats the national ruling party holds in the regional legislature and by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. For regions with substantial competition in their local legislatures, we find that governors appointed by the national government provide more public goods than do governors who are chosen locally. The latter appear to allocate more funds for themselves. But for regions in which one party has a near monopoly of political power, governors chosen by the region provide more public goods than governors appointed by the national government. Moreover, we find evidence of a non-monotonic (inverted U) relationship between the intensity of political competition, the efficiency of accountability mechanisms, and some measures of public goods (primarily education and health care).
