A Costly Commitment: Populism, Economic Performance, and the Quality of Bureaucracy

Luca Bellodi; Massimo Morelli; Matia Vannoni

doi:10.1111/ajps.12782

A Costly Commitment: Populism, Economic Performance, and the Quality of Bureaucracy

Luca Bellodi
, Massimo Morelli
, Matia Vannoni

Bocconi University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

37 Citations (Scopus)

197 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We study the consequences of populism for economic performance and the quality of bureaucracy. When voters lose trust in representative democracy, populists strategically supply unconditional policy commitments that are easier to monitor for voters. When in power, populists try to implement their policy commitments regardless of financial constraints and expert assessment of the feasibility of their policies, worsening government economic performance and dismantling resistance from expert bureaucrats. With novel data on more than 8,000 Italian municipalities covering more than 20 years, we estimate the effect of electing a populist mayor with a close-election regression discontinuity design. We find that the election of a populist mayor leads to smaller repayments of debts, a larger share of procurement contracts with cost overruns, higher turnover among top bureaucrats—driven by forced rather than voluntary departures—and a sharp decrease in the percentage of postgraduate bureaucrats.

Original language	English
Journal	AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
Early online date	2 Apr 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12782
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 2 Apr 2023

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This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

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10.1111/ajps.12782Licence: CC BY

A Costly Commitment Populism_Bellodi_publishedonline02April2023_Gold_VOR (CC BY)Final published version, 600 KBLicence: CC BY

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A Costly Commitment: Populism, Economic Performance, and the Quality of Bureaucracy

Abstract

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