Concrete doesn't pay with votes : public works and electoral accountability

Abstract

I study how voters respond to public works generating incentives for the strategic behavior of rulers in relation to how the projects are allocated. To determine the electoral effect, I use a difference in difference approach for the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires between the 2017 and 2019 elections. I studied the public works policy in an integral manner, disaggregated by its level of visibility, disaggregated by its type and I contemplated the possibility of heterogeneous effects by income. I found no significant electoral effect of the public works policy as a whole. Instead, only a determined type of projects (based on city government classification) is valued by a determined social class as for instance, the poor value investments in education infrastructure and the rich value improved public spaces.