• DOI:10.1086/715062
• Corpus ID: 160023663

Can Good Politicians Compensate for Bad Institutions? Evidence from an Original Survey of Italian Mayors

@article{Carreri2021CanGP,
  title={Can Good Politicians Compensate for Bad Institutions? Evidence from an Original Survey of Italian Mayors},
  author={Maria Carreri},
  journal={The Journal of Politics},
  year={2021},
  volume={83},
  pages={1229 - 1245}
}

• Maria Carreri
• Published 1 November 2019
• Political Science, Economics
• The Journal of Politics

Can competent political leaders bring significant policy changes to communities otherwise doomed by “bad” informal institutions? This question has remained unanswered because of the lack of a convincing measure of politicians’ competence. I develop a novel survey technique to measure the administrative competence of executive politicians, and I apply it in interviews with 306 Italian mayors. I study the impact of mayors’ administrative competence on the policies they enact, using a difference-in-differences approach. Results show that more competent mayors are associated with better policies, but the association is only present in cases where the quality of informal institutions is low. In these municipalities, the election of more competent mayors translates into a more effective use of funds, an increase in long-term investments, and better service provision without an increase in taxes. Results hold across different measures of institutional quality.