I aim to identify the presence of spatial interactions among local governments by exploiting a novel strategy. Specifically, I take advantage of the political cycle of Italian municipalities over the period of 2001–2011 to isolate the effect of the spending decisions of one municipality on neighboring municipalities. The results of this analysis point to the presence of strategic interactions between neighboring municipalities and indicate that such fiscal behavior is more pronounced during electoral years compared to non-electoral ones, when municipalities are governed by coalitions backed by a small majority, and in cities guided by a mayor who can run for re-election. Taken together, these results suggest that the observed spatial dependence in spending decisions seems to be consistent with the yardstick competition hypothesis.

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政治周期，空间互动和准绳竞争：来自意大利城市的证据

我的目的是通过采用新的策略来确定地方政府之间存在空间互动。具体来说，我利用了2001-2011年意大利市政当局的政治周期来隔离一个市政当局的支出决定对邻近市政当局的影响。该分析的结果表明，相邻市政当局之间存在战略互动，并表明，与非选举政党相比，选举年期间的财政行为在非选举政党中更为明显，后者是由少数党支持的联盟统治的市政当局，市长可以竞选连任。综上所述，这些结果表明，在支出决策中观察到的空间依赖性似乎与标准竞争假设相一致。