Political Competition and Politician Quality: Evidence from Italian Municipalities

Data from Italian local level governments for the years 1985-2008 is used to investigate whether political competition affects the quality of politicians, as measured by some ex-ante characteristics such as educational level and type of job held. Endogeneity problems are dealt with through an instrumental variable approach using a variable which takes into account whether the previous Municipal Council survived until the end of its legislative term as an instrument for political competition. Two Stage Least Square estimates support the view that political competition positively affects politician quality. Results are robust to different measures of political competition and to different estimation strategies.