Local institutions and public school spending under restricted suffrage: The case of post-unitary Italy

This paper studies the impact of legislative size on public spending on education, in a context of restricted suffrage. In 1860s Italy, male teachers were pivotal voters and were directly hired and fired by the local council. As a consequence, local legislators gained large political payoffs from public spending on education. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that townships that were quasi-randomly assigned a larger council spent more on primary education by 6% of a standard deviation per additional councilman. Consistent with a pork-barrel mechanism, the legislative size effect on spending is driven by a surge in the appointment of male teachers, while female teachers, ineligible to vote, were not affected by legislative size. Higher school spending is associated with higher public education supply and a larger student population.