Do constitutions matter? Evidence from a natural experiment at the municipality level

Abstract

This paper asks if it does matter for taxes and government spending whether the mayor is elected (and recalled) by direct election or by the municipal council. It thus contributes to the economic literature on the impact of constitutions on economic outcomes. The effects are identified based on reforms of the municipal constitutions that were exogenous from the point of view of the municipalities in content and timing: each year, quasi-randomly selected groups of municipalities introduced the new constitution. This setup helps overcome endogeneity and identification issues that are common to many studies in the field using country level data. Using a new panel dataset of the 686 municipalities in three German states, this paper shows that direct mayoral election and recall through referendum only (as opposed to election and recall through the municipal council) reduce tax rates and increases spending on government employees.