Political Parties Do Matter In U.S. Cities… For Their Unfunded Pensions
By Christian Dippel
Using data covering a wide range of municipal public-sector pension plans from 1962– 2014, I establish that unfunded pension benefits grow faster under Democratic-party mayors, using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) focusing on narrow mayoral races. Previous evidence shows that parties do not matter for a range of fiscal outcomes in U.S. cities, and suggests this is because Tiebout sorting imposes fiscal discipline. This paper shows that parties do matter for types of fiscal spending where benefits accrue to narrow constituencies and where costs are difficult to observe and understand for tax payers.
Source: NBER
