Political Selection and Economic Policy
利用芬兰地方行政数据和接近选举的外生变化，研究发现选举高收入、在职且有能力的政治家能改善财政可持续性，但不缩小公共部门规模；选举大学教育背景的议员则增加公共支出而不损害财政可持续性。
Abstract Does political selection matter for policy in representative governments? I use administrative data on local politicians in Finland and exploit exogenous variation generated by close elections to show that electing more high-income, incumbent and competent politicians (who earn more than observably similar politicians) improves fiscal sustainability outcomes, but does not decrease the size of the public sector. I also provide suggestive evidence that electing more university-educated local councillors leads to more public spending without adverse effects on fiscal sustainability. I reconcile these findings with survey data on candidate ideology and demonstrate that different qualities are differentially associated with economic ideology.