The Economic and Political Effects of Participatory Budgeting: an Update

• In Event: Participatory Policies in Brazil: Empirical and Theoretical Approches to the Study of State-Society Interactions and Political Effects

Abstract

What are the effects of Brazilian participatory budgeting? Most studies answer this question using selected case studies. This paper proposes an empirical analysis of the political and fiscal effect of participatory budgeting. Focusing on all the cities that have a population greater than 50000 inhabitants between the years 1989 and 2012 it extends significantly the scope and understanding of previous empirical work. The results show that participatory budgeting has limited effects on the composition of public spending. Only health care spending is increased by the implementation of PB. To the contrary of previous anecdotal evidence participatory budgeting has no significant effects on tax collection. Finally participatory budgeting significantly increases the probability of reelection of the party of the mayor, but this effect is limited to just one term.

Author

• Paolo Spada, University of British Columbia