Self‐Preserving Leviathans Evidence from Local‐Level Data
研究了政治竞争强度对地方官员利维坦行为的影响，发现弱竞争下选举年支出达峰，强竞争则无此周期，表明官员是自我保护的利维坦。
Summary This paper investigates the impact of the intensity of political competition on the leviathan behavior of local politicians. While we find only weak effects of strong parties on total expenditures and, thus, only weak traces of standard leviathan behavior, we find strong evidence that the spending pattern during a legislative period depends on the distribution of power in local councils. In municipalities with weak political competition, the public spending reaches a peak in election years. If parties face politically strong opponents, they do not initiate a political budget cycle. Our results indicate that local politicians act as self‐preserving leviathans.