Abstract

What is the effect of legislature size on public goods provision? While the effect might be positive in countries where institutions work well, adding politicians can be harmful in countries plagued by corruption, clientelism, and other institutional inefficiencies. Using evidence from population discontinuities for city council size in Brazil, we show that additional legislators improve education and health care outcomes, and lower requests for conditional cash transfers. By investigating the mechanism that drives the results, we find that larger legislatures tend to empower the mayors, making it easier for them to implement their agendas. Our results are robust to different model specifications and have implications for the design of legislative institutions.

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