ABSTRACT

We study how electoral competition and party system fragmentation affect local environmental public goods provision. When the effective number of political parties is too low, there is not enough competition to incentivize service provision by the incumbent. Increasing the number of parties in this scenario strengthens electoral competition and the incentive for the incumbent to deliver public goods. However, when the number of political parties is too high, the system becomes too fragmented to produce beneficial outcomes in public goods provision. We therefore expect a U-shaped relationship between the effective number of parties and local air pollution. Based on a Mexican municipal panel data of 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014, our empirical analysis confirms this theoretical expectation: PM2.5 pollution goes down with the effective number of parties before the latter reaches the value around three; after this point, air pollution goes up with the effective number of parties.

摘要

我们研究了选举竞争和政党制度碎片化如何影响地方环境公共产品的供给。当政党的有效数量太少时，就没有足够的竞争来激励现任者提供服务。在这种情况下增加政党数量会加强选举竞争和现任执政者提供公共产品的动力。然而，当政党数量过多时，系统就会变得过于分散，无法在公共产品提供方面产生有益的结果。因此，我们预计有效参与方数量与当地空气污染之间存在 U 型关系。基于 1999 年、2004 年、2009 年和 2014 年墨西哥市政面板数据，我们的实证分析证实了这一理论预期：PM2.5。5 污染随有效当事人数下降，后者达到 3 左右；在此之后，空气污染随着有效政党数量的增加而上升。