Political Colleagues Matter: The Impact of Multiple Office-Holding on Intergovernmental Grants

Résumé 0

This paper brings new evidence on the politics of intergovernmental grants. I focus on multiple office-holding (i.e. whether a local incumbent who has concurrently a seat at an upper layer of government gets more funds from this layer). By using a new panel database on French local governments’ accounts, I focus on grants counties allocate to municipalities. For identification, I rely on close electoral races. I find that aligned multiple office-holders (mayors who also have a seat in the majority group of the county council) get on average 28% more grants for their municipality than other municipal incumbents. Evidence on the heterogeneity of this effect suggests that grantors’ information on potential recipients, as well as local incumbents’ access to upper layers politicians, are key determinants in the allocation of intergovernmental transfers.