Political Turnover, Bureaucratic Turnover, and the Quality of Public Services
利用巴西市长选举的断点回归设计，发现新政党上台导致市政官僚大规模更替，进而使市管学校考试成绩下降0.05-0.08个标准差，表明政治更替在官僚未受保护时会损害公共服务质量。
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 experience upheavals in the municipal bureaucracy: new personnel are appointed across multiple service sectors, and at both managerial and non-managerial levels. In education, the increase in the replacement rate of personnel in schools controlled by the municipal government is accompanied by test scores that are 0.05–0.08 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.