We examine the role of political alignment and the electoral business cycle on municipality revenues in Greece for the period 2003–2010. The misallocation of resources for political gain represents a waste of resources with significant negative effects on local growth and effective decentralization. The focus of our analysis is municipality mayors since they mediate the relationship between central government and voters and hence can influence the effectiveness of any potential pork-barrelling activity. A novel panel data set combining the results of two local and three national elections with annual municipality budgets is used to run a fixed-effects econometric model. This allows us to identify whether the political alignment between mayors and central government affects municipality financing. We examine this at different stages of local and national electoral cycles, investigating both direct intergovernmental transfers (grants) and the remaining sources of local revenues (own revenues, loans). We find that total revenues are significantly higher for aligned municipalities in the run-up to elections due to higher intergovernmental transfers. We also find evidence that the 2008 crisis has reduced such pork-barrelling activity. This significant resource misallocation increases vertical networking dependency and calls for policy changes promoting greater decentralization and encouraging innovation in local revenue raising.

我们考察了2003年至2010年期间政治联盟和选举商业周期对希腊市政收入的作用。为政治利益而错配资源表示浪费资源，对当地的增长和有效的权力下放产生重大不利影响。我们分析的重点是市政市长，因为他们可以调解中央政府与选民之间的关系，因此可以影响任何潜在的猪肉巡游活动的有效性。一个新颖的面板数据集将两个地方选举和三个国家选举的结果与年度市政预算结合起来，用于运行固定效应计量经济学模型。这使我们能够确定市长与中央政府之间的政治契合是否会影响市政融资。我们在地方和国家选举周期的不同阶段对此进行研究，调查直接的政府间转移支付（拨款）和地方税收的其余来源（自有收入，贷款）。我们发现，由于政府间转移支付的增加，在选举前夕，统一市镇的总收入要高得多。我们还发现有证据表明，2008年的危机减少了此类猪肉禁运活动。这种严重的资源分配不当增加了垂直网络的依赖性，并要求进行政策改革，以促进更大程度的权力下放，并鼓励地方税收创新。我们发现，由于政府间转移支付的增加，在选举前夕，统一市镇的总收入要高得多。我们还发现有证据表明，2008年的危机减少了此类猪肉禁运活动。这种严重的资源分配不当增加了垂直网络的依赖性，并要求改变政策以促进更大的权力下放并鼓励地方税收创新。我们发现，由于政府间转移支付的增加，在选举前夕，统一市镇的总收入要高得多。我们还发现有证据表明，2008年的危机减少了此类猪肉禁运活动。这种严重的资源分配不当增加了垂直网络的依赖性，并要求进行政策改革，以促进更大程度的权力下放，并鼓励地方税收创新。