We study the role of partisanship in shaping local fiscal policy in Brazilian cities in the 2004–2016 period. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we find no effect of left-wing mayors on the size of the city government. We find a modest but robust positive effect of approximately 0.6 percentage points on the social expenditures share, which translates in a small (approximately 1 percent) increase in social expenditure per capita. The impact of left-wing mayors on social spending is stronger in the 2004–2008 ‘boom years’, for lame-duck mayors and in cities receiving oil windfalls. These results suggest that Brazilian parties attempt to shape the allocation of municipal resources to favor their respective electoral bases but their ability to do so is severely limited by factors such as institutional constraints and re-election concerns.

我们研究了党派关系在制定2004-2016年巴西城市地方财政政策中的作用。使用回归非连续性设计，我们发现左翼市长对城市政府的规模没有影响。我们发现，对社会支出的份额产生了约0.6个百分点的适度但有力的积极影响，这意味着人均社会支出略有增加（约1％）。在2004-2008年的“繁荣时期”，左翼市长对social脚鸭市长和遭受石油暴利的城市的社会支出影响更大。这些结果表明，巴西政党试图改变市政资源的分配方式，以支持其各自的选举基础，但其这样做的能力受到体制约束和连任之忧等因素的严重限制。