Electoralism in Portuguese town and city councils

• Autor(a) principal: Gonçalves Veiga, Linda
• Data de Publicação: 2005
• Outros Autores: Veiga, Francisco José
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.31447/AS00032573.2005177.06
• topic: eleitoralismo dos autarcas; Portugal; 1979-2001; local authorities electoralism; Portugal; 1979-2001; .

This article tests for the existence of political and economic cycles in city councils in continental Portugal from 1979 to 2001. The empirical results clearly show that local government officials behave in an electoralist manner in election years local authorities increase their deficits and add to municipal expenditure, taking on more employees. In terms of expenditure, the highest increases take place under headings which are highly visible to the electorate, such as Viaducts, roads and highways and associated works and Rural transport. To the extent that local government officials' electoralism produces inefficiencies in terms of resource allocation, we believe there is a good case to be made for the imposition of rules limiting the discretionary management powers of local authority treasury departments.