Is it worth to be a good mayor? Do voters reward or punish incumbent based on their fiscal outputs? On the one hand, researchers of the school of Michigan claim that voters are uninformed and lack political knowledge. Hence they frequently make myopic electoral decisions. On the other hand, the literature of electoral accountability, specially the retrospective voting, argues that even though voters are not completely informed, they make competent electoral decisions. Ultimately, citizens vote rewarding or punishing the incumbents based on their administration results. In order to test citizen competence and political accountability assumptions, this article examines if voters reward better fiscal policy performance by reelecting incumbent mayors, using indexes that reflect important aspects concerning fiscal outputs. The multivariate model results confirm the retrospective voting since it is observed significant effects of budgetary and financial management on the chances of the reelection of the mayors.
electoral behavior; retrospective voting; fiscal management; Brazil
