Dirty Politics: Electoral Pollution Cycles in Mexican Municipalities

• In Event: Budgets, Bribes, and Local Political Survival

Abstract

Does electoral accountability harm voters? Air pollution is an invisible killer that claims more than 5.5 million lives annually worldwide. In this paper, we study the effect of electoral incentives on air quality in Mexico. Building upon the theory of the political pollution cycle (Shen 2018), We hypothesize that local politicians will accommodate the preferences of their constituencies by engaging in activities that have short-term electoral and economic returns but would generate pollution unintentionally, imposing negative health consequences for the public. To test our theory, we leverage the exogenous variation in electoral timing in Mexican states and municipalities and measure its effect on pollution levels. Two observable implications follow. First, since the regulation of vehicular emissions stays in the hands of state governors, the level of PM2.5 and ozone (i.e., pollutants that originate from vehicular emissions) increases with the proximity of election times at the state level. Second, given that mayors control construction permits, the proximity of municipal elections is accompanied by higher levels of PM10 and NOx (i.e., pollutants from construction and transportation dust). Our paper contributes to the study of electoral incentives in young, unconsolidated democracies. It also sheds light on how voters fail to internalize the tradeoff between economic growth and environmental quality.

Authors

• Edgar Franco Vivanco, Stanford University

• Cesar B. Martinez-Alvarez, University of California, Los Angeles

• Shiran Victoria Shen, University of Virginia