Better to be direct? Evidence from the abolition of direct elections in Italian local governments

Abstract

This paper provides evidence for the importance of direct electoral processes by investigating the consequences for public spending of an unexpected reform that repealed direct elections for local (provincial) politicians in Italy. Direct elections were substituted with indirect ones, whereby directly elected municipal politicians choose a municipal mayor to serve as provincial president. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I document two main consequences of the reform. First, municipalities connected to the provincial presidents tend to receive disproportionately more public funds after the reform, suggesting geographic favoritism increased. Second, the share of provincial resources spent on public goods drops in favor of bureaucratic costs. I discuss suggestive evidence that these results are driven by weaker electoral incentives rather than by the selection of worse politicians.