Weak Foundations: Competition and Local Infrastructure Development in Brazil

• In Event: State Actors and Public Goods Provision under Democracy and Authoritarianism

Abstract

What explains the pervasiveness of unfinished infrastructure projects in the developing world? Contrary to the expectations of the democratic accountability literature, I find a that local political competition is negatively associated with infrastructure delivery, conditional on project initiation. Leveraging 10 months of fieldwork and a novel dataset of over 35 thousand primary care clinic construction and renovation projects in Brazil, I present evidence that elections undermine infrastructure delivery through two mechanisms. First, elections increase the cost of long planning and procurement phases, making projects vulnerable to cost overruns and schedule delays. Second, competition intensifies intertemporal commitment problems when incumbents lose reelection. My research highlights how project implementation is affected by electoral cycles and contributes to the growing literature on the limits of democratic accountability.

Author

• Beatriz Barros, Virginia Tech