Clean Competition

49 Pages·2017·0.78 MB·English

Clean Competition: How Competitive Elections Clean-up the Air in Mexican
Municipalities.

Anthony Pezzola
Instituto de Ciencia Política
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Amanda Fidalgo
Department of Political Science
Penn State University

Xun Cao
Department of Political Science
Penn State University

July 26, 2017

Abstract: This paper evaluates whether and how electoral competition across Mexico’s
municipalities influences local air quality. Past research suggests that greater electoral
competition makes politicians more accountable to voters and stimulates a shift towards the
provision of public goods. Most recent studies use social spending or infrastructure to measure
public goods. However, the ability to target social programs and infrastructure projects to
specific constituencies can reduce their “public” nature. Instead, we study the relationship
between electoral competition and air pollution. The disperse nature of clean air and the trade-off
faced by local politicians between providing clean-air and promoting the local economy makes
the provision of clean air a more difficult public good. Using satellite data to capture air quality
across Mexico’s municipalities, our main finding is that electoral competition measured by the
effective number of parties is associated with lower level of PM 2.5 air pollution.

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Introduction
Electoral competition and government responsiveness is hardly a new topic for students of
politics. There is often thought to be a positive link between electoral competition and the
provision of public goods. The basic argument rests on theories of electoral accountability,
which posit that elections offer citizens the opportunity to influence policy outcomes by
removing representatives that perform poorly (Austen-Smith and Banks 1989; Ferejohn 1986).
Most studies use the level of social spending and infrastructure projects as measures of public
goods. However, the ability to target social programs and infrastructure projects to specific
constituencies can reduce their “public” nature. Environmental public goods, such as air quality,
on the other hand, are some of the purest types of public goods. They are both non-excludable
and non-rival. Moreover, the disperse nature of clean air as well as the trade-off, often faced by
politicians, between providing environmental public goods and protecting the vibrancy of the
local economy makes the provision of clean air a more difficult public good to target and to
politicize for electoral benefit. Our first contribution, therefore, is to assess the relationship
between electoral competition and the provision of a less studied, pure(r) public good.
This paper makes a second important contribution by studying a public good that has
significant distributive implications that stem from regulatory enforcement rather than fiscal
outlays that provide jobs, services, or cash transfers. Regulating pollution can negatively affect
businesses, especially small enterprises and those in the informal sector, resulting in increased
poverty (Dasputa et al 1998). Small and informal producers tend to emit far more particulate
emissions than their larger counterpart, making them targets for anti-pollution policies. However,
small and informal enterprises also tend to have far more difficulty reducing contamination even
when the need capital investments are small. For example, in the 1990s, a typical brick kiln in
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Ciudad Juárez, Mexico used tires and other debris as fuel, making kilns one of the most
important sources of air pollution. On average, kilns employed six people and had weekly
profits of only $100 (Backman and Barrister 1998). Low profits and a lack of credit make it
almost impossible for operators to adjust production methods. As such, programs in Ciudad
Juárez and numerous other municipalities to regulate and reduce emissions from kilns
jeopardized the livelihood of thousands of already impoverished individuals.
The clear distributional consequences for small and informal businesses makes properly
regulating pollution politically difficult, especially in Latin America. This is partly because
individuals in the informal sector participate more in politics than their formal counterparts
(Thornton 2000) and strongly link their evaluations of politicians to their economic
circumstances (Singer 2016). Individuals in the informal sector are also likely to belong to trade
or other local associations that allow them to lobby against pollution control efforts. Regulating
the informal sector may also threaten existing clientelistic relationships. Tendler (2002) finds
that local Brazilian politicians often enter into an unspoken deal with small enterprises, keeping
police and inspectors from harassing them in exchange for political support.
This paper makes a third significant and empirical contribution to environmental studies
in international and comparative politics by using satellite air pollution data to study the
relationship between electoral competition and air pollution at the municipal level within
Mexico. Large-N studies of environmental politics often adopt a country-level approach. This is
understandable because theories often focus on the environmental effects of national-level
political institutions (Fredriksson and Millimet 2004; Scruggs 2003), and because most cross-
national data on pollution is only available at the national level. Data on air pollution at the
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monitoring station level are available;1 however, most monitoring stations are in the OECD
countries.2 Fined-grained data on sub-national level environmental outcomes, especially for
developing countries, are difficult to find and limits our ability to study within country variation
in environmental outcomes. Studying subnational level variation is important for students of
environmental politics, because ultimately pollution is a function of local characteristics such as
climate conditions, geography, and economic and social conditions. The use of satellite data,
such as those provided in grid-cells as small as 0.1 × 0.1 decimal degree cell resolutions (about
11 km by 11 km at the Equator) allows us to model and test within country variation in air
pollution.
The relationship between electoral competition and the provision of public goods is likely
to be a complex one. We argue that there might be mediating factors that influence the provision
of environmental public goods. For instance, it is likely that electoral competition can only lead
to the greater provision of public goods if the public prioritizes it. If voters prioritize economic
growth, competitive elections may increase government investments in areas such as
infrastructure (e.g., building roads and bridges) which is sometimes associated with more
pollution. At the same time, encumbers in poorer municipalities may find it more politically
efficient to provide private goods to ensure electoral victory. Therefore, we also examine
whether electoral competition has a stronger effect on the provision of clean air in wealthier
municipalities.

1 For example, see Bernauer and Koubi (2009).
2 Even within some of the richest countries, there are not enough stations to cover the ground.
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Mexico is a useful and interesting case for a few reasons. First, it presents a particularly
difficult test because it is a newly democratic regime (after the single-party rule of the PRI) and a
country still eager to develop its economy. As such, a culture of electoral accountability is not as
fully developed among voters as in more established democracies and we should expect voters’
preferences to be more geared towards economic growth. Additionally, there is significant
variation in the level of electoral competition at the municipal level, which provides us with
significant leverage to uncover the role of local politics in providing environmental public goods.
The connection between pollution and electoral competition may seem tenuous,
especially in a developing country and at the local level. However, there is good reason to
believe that municipal governments play an active role in and care about air pollution in Mexico.
The Mexican constitution grants municipalities the ability to develop ecological policies, the
power to deal with low-level ecological emergencies and risks, the responsibility of regulating
and preventing air and water pollution, managing the disposal of solid waste, and evaluating and
regulating the environmental impacts of urban growth (Assetto, Hajba and Mumme 2003). They
are also responsible for zoning and have the power to create ecological zones (Grindle 2007).
The environmental law passed in 1988 decentralized significant authority over environmental
policy to the municipal level. It charges municipalities with monitoring and ensuring the
application of federal environmental regulations; it entrusts municipalities with the responsibility
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to address all environmental problems within their jurisdiction not already specifically reserved
for federal or state authorities.3
Additionally, while Mexico is a country that is eager to develop economically it is also a
country in which people care about air pollution. Survey data from the World and European
Value Surveys (WEVS) reveal the saliency of environmental preferences in the Mexican public.
In 1996 and 2000, Mexican respondents indicated a preference for protecting the environment
with a ratio close to 3:2; in 2005, the ratio of Mexicans choosing the environment to those
choosing economic development almost reached 2:1: these were well above the response ratio of
citizens in similar Latin American countries.4 Rodríguez-Sánchez (2014) more recently shows

3 While the specific policy responsibilities of municipalities vary by state, most have the ability to
pass environmental regulatory ordinances and sanction violations of those ordinances (Assetto,
Hajba and Mumme 2003).
4 The WEVS provides a question on citizens’ relative preference regarding “protecting
environment vs. economic growth.” It asks respondents to choose from two statements:
“Protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it causes slower economic growth
and some loss of jobs” vs. “Economic growth and creating jobs should be the top priority, even if
the environment suffers to some extent.” We consider respondents choosing the first statement as
having environmental preferences.
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that Mexicans are willing to pay to reduce air pollution: on average, a household head would pay
$46.90 to $283.61 for a one-unit reduction in particulate matter emissions per year.5
To explain air quality across time and across Mexico’s municipalities, we use the
Effective Number of Parties and the Margin of Victory in city council (ayuntamiento) elections to
measure electoral competitiveness. We test both its marginal effect on air pollution and its
interactive effect with local environmental demands (using GDP per-capita as a proxy). We find
that party dominance on city councils (a lower Effective Number of Parties) is associated with
poorer air quality, while a lower Margin of Victory by the leading party has no clear relationship
with cleaner air. We find no evidence for the interactive effect between GDP per-capita and
either measure of electoral competition. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: First, we
discuss theoretical connections between electoral competition and public goods provisions.
Second, we provide a brief discussion of actions municipal government can and have taken to
impact air pollution in Mexico We then present the data and the empirical findings. Finally, we
conclude and discuss directions of future research.

Electoral Competition and Public Goods Provisions
We aim to explain subnational variation in air pollution. While there are numerous potential
factors that can explain air quality including climate, geographic conditions, and the nature of the
local economy, we focus on political explanations. We treat air quality as a public good and rely

5 In constant 2000 dollars. In Rodríguez-Sánchez (2014), the mean of the PM emissions per area
variable is about 0.80 and the standard deviation is 0.95. This suggests that one-unit reduction in
PM is close to one standard deviation reduction.
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on theories regarding public goods provisions to explain variation in air quality across Mexican
municipalities. Such theories often implicitly assume pure public goods that are fully non-rival
and non-excludable. Yet, in reality, most studies focus on public goods or services that suffer
from some degree of rivalry and some crowding effects (e.g., infrastructure, education, health
care, and social welfare). The enjoyment of a unit of an impure public good goes down with the
number of people consuming it. Air quality, on the other hand, is one of the purest public goods.
Clean air is less subject to crowding effects or rivalry. Non-excludability is also less of a concern
for air quality. Moreover, almost all social spending and infrastructure projects can be targeted to
specific groups making them essentially club goods. While the location of high polluting
activities may be strategically placed (Monogan, Konisky, and Woods 2015), air quality at the
municipal level is much more difficult to direct towards a specific constituency.
There are a number of theories linking political factors to the provision of public goods.
Some, such as the selectorate theory,6 are not directly relevant to subnational regimes that have
similar institutions. Rather than review all of these theories, we focus on an approach related to
electoral competition and government responsiveness. This approach often predicts a positive
link between electoral competitiveness and the provision of public goods. The basic argument
originates from the electoral democratic theory, which posits that competitive elections offer
citizens the opportunity to influence government representatives by threatening to remove the

6 Selectorate theory posits that as the size of the winning coalition increases, a ruler will rely more
on the provision of public goods because the relative price of doing so falls compared to buying
support with private good transfers (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003). The theory predicts that
regimes with large winning coalitions (often democracies) typically provide more public goods.
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incumbent for poor performance and by selecting representatives who are competent and share
the public's preferences (Austen-Smith & Banks 1989; Ferejohn 1986).

Higher Electoral Competition, More Public Goods? It is generally thought that democracies,
which are presumed to be more competitive, tend to provide more public goods than other forms
of government. Competitive elections force politicians to address constituent demands.
Ambitious politicians hoping to maintain their office and advance their political careers face a
constant threat of removal. Political survival requires that they perform well. For instance, Fox
(1994) argues that competition breaks down clientelist bonds, leading to more social spending as
candidates and officials come under greater scrutiny. Wittman (1989) shows that political
competition pushes governments toward efficient outcomes by lowering the opportunism of
politicians. Becker (1983) finds that even in the presence of successful pressure groups,
competition should cause governments to correct market failures (reflected in lower pollution),
since policies that raise efficiency should win out because they produce gains rather than
deadweight costs to society. Brown and Hunter (1999) show that democracies tend to spend
more in general, and specifically on education.7
However, the aforementioned theoretical predictions following this electoral democratic
thesis have received mixed empirical support, particularly when studying developing countries.

7 Treating education, especially primary education, as a public good, many studies suggest that
democracy increases government education spending and improves educational outcomes (Ansell
2008; Nooruddin and Simmons 2009; Stasavage 2005; Hecock 2006; Huber, Mustillo and
Stephens 2008).
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In the Mexican context, studies conducted at the state level often find a positive connection
between electoral competition and public goods (or government performance). For instance,
Hecock (2006) finds that higher electoral competition is associated with more education
spending. Studies conducted at the municipal level, on the other hand, often reveal null results.
For instance, Cleary (2007) finds no connection between electoral competition and public goods
(sewer and water coverage). Grindle (2007) finds no clear relationship between competition and
government performance, with the latter measured as an index measuring efficiency,
effectiveness, responsiveness, change initiatives, and development orientation. Moreno-Jaimes
(2007) is also unable to find a discernable relationship between electoral competition (measured
by margin of victory) and basic service provision (water drainage) in Mexico. Euler (2014)
shows that competition (margin of victory) has no positive relationship with the provision of
public services. The only exception that we know of is Hiskey (2003), which shows that
municipalities that lack political competition and were dominated by the PRI are associated with
lower public service provisions.
Similarly, studies based on non-Mexican cases show mixed empirical results at the
subnational level. Arvate (2013) shows that electoral competition increases student enrollment,
teachers, and free immunizations in Brazil. Pereira and Melo (2009), on the other hand, find that
the influence of competition on social spending depends on the degree of checks and balances
within Brazilian states, while Cavalcante (2013) finds no effect for electoral competition.
Chhibber and Nooruddin (2004) show that in India, greater competition is not necessarily
beneficial because states with more than three effective parties provide fewer public goods.
Elsewhere, Sánchez Torres and Pachón (2013) find political competition increases public goods
at the municipal level in Columbia; Galasso and Nannicili (2011) and Paola and Scoppa (2010)
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