IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v52y2024i5p610-642.html

Do Political Leaders Impact Economic Freedom at the Local Level? Evidence from Close Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Zach Raff
  • Andrew Swanson
  • Danielle Zanzalari

Abstract

This paper examines whether state and local political leaders’ partisan affiliations affect economic freedom at the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) level. Because political leaders’ partisan affiliations likely correlate with unobserved state- and local-level characteristics that also affect the economic freedom levels of MSAs, we use a regression discontinuity design that leverages close elections as natural experiments to identify a causal effect. Using Stansel (2019)’s index, which aggregates a bundle of policies into a single measure of economic freedom, we find that close Republican majorities in the lower State House increase overall MSA-level economic freedom. This effect is realized through consistent governments (i.e., Republican governor and Republican State House majority) and primarily through changes in labor market policy. At the city level, Republican mayors also increase overall MSA-level economic freedom levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Zach Raff & Andrew Swanson & Danielle Zanzalari, 2024. "Do Political Leaders Impact Economic Freedom at the Local Level? Evidence from Close Elections," Public Finance Review, , vol. 52(5), pages 610-642, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:52:y:2024:i:5:p:610-642
    DOI: 10.1177/10911421231225779
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10911421231225779
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/10911421231225779?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Bjørnskov & Niklas Potrafke, 2013. "The size and scope of government in the US states: does party ideology matter?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(4), pages 687-714, August.
    2. Feigenbaum, James J. & Fouirnaies, Alexander & Hall, Andrew B., 2017. "The Majority-Party Disadvantage: Revising Theories of Legislative Organization," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 12(3), pages 269-300, October.
    3. David M. Primo, 2006. "Stop Us Before We Spend Again: Institutional Constraints On Government Spending," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 269-312, November.
    4. Raff, Zach & Meyer, Andrew & Walter, Jason M., 2022. "Political differences in air pollution abatement under the Clean Air Act," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    5. Luca Repetto & Maximiliano Sosa Andrés, 2022. "Divided Government and Polarization: Regression-Discontinuity Evidence from US States," CESifo Working Paper Series 9823, CESifo.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Donald J. Lacombe & Timothy Shaughnessy, 2025. "Economic Freedom and Presidential Elections: A Bayesian Spatial Probit Hierarchical Modeling Approach," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(3), pages 497-502, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Potrafke, Niklas, 2025. "The economic consequences of fiscal rules," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    2. Niklas Potrafke & Margret Schneider & Christian Simon, 2013. "Zum Einfluss von Parteiideologie auf die Staatstätigkeit in den US-Bundesstaaten," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 66(11), pages 24-29, June.
    3. Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Government ideology and economic policy-making in the United States—a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 145-207, January.
    4. Niklas Potrafke, 2017. "Government Ideology and Economic Policy-Making in the United States," CESifo Working Paper Series 6444, CESifo.
    5. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    6. Arye L. Hillman & Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Economic Freedom and Religion," Public Finance Review, , vol. 46(2), pages 249-275, March.
    7. Heiko T. Burret & Lars P. Feld, 2014. "A Note on Budget Rules and Fiscal Federalism," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 12(01), pages 03-11, April.
    8. Christian Bjørnskov & Niklas Potrafke, 2013. "The size and scope of government in the US states: does party ideology matter?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(4), pages 687-714, August.
    9. Alptekin, Huzeyfe & Freire, Danilo & Mignozzetti, Umberto Guarnier & Roman, Catarina, 2020. "The Effect of Legislature Size on Public Spending: A Meta-Analysis," SocArXiv xf7wp, Center for Open Science.
    10. Felix Rösel, 2017. "The Political Economy of Fiscal Supervision and Budget Deficits: Evidence from Germany," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 38, pages 641-666, December.
    11. George R. Crowley, 2019. "The Law of 1/n Revisited: Distributive Politics, Legislature Size, and the Costs of Collective Action," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 667-690, October.
    12. Berggren, Niclas & Nilsson, Therese, 2016. "Tolerance in the United States: Does economic freedom transform racial, religious, political and sexual attitudes?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 53-70.
    13. Blume, Lorenz & Voigt, Stefan, 2013. "The economic effects of constitutional budget institutions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 236-251.
    14. Dongwon Lee, 2015. "Supermajority rule and the law of 1/n," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 251-274, September.
    15. Christian Bjørnskov & Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Freedom Across Canadian Provinces," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 143-166.
    16. Krogstrup, Signe & Wyplosz, Charles, 2010. "A common pool theory of supranational deficit ceilings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 269-278, February.
    17. Toke S. Aidt & Vitor Castro & Rodrigo Martins, 2018. "Shades of red and blue: government ideology and sustainable development," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 303-323, June.
    18. Witson Peña Tello, 2025. "Partisan Climate Action, Utility Interests, and Policy Choice in the U.S. Power Sector," IREA Working Papers 202524, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics.
    19. Dongwon Lee & Sangwon Park, 2018. "Court-ordered redistricting and the law of 1/n," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 507-528, September.
    20. Adam A. Millsap & Bradley K. Hobbs & Dean Stansel, 2019. "Local Governments and Economic Freedom: A Test of the Leviathan Hypothesis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 47(3), pages 493-529, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:52:y:2024:i:5:p:610-642. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.