Abstract
We evaluate whether political partisanship affects local taxes in an emerging economy. Using detailed residential property-level data in Chile, we study whether mayors’ political leanings affect the reassessment process and thus the taxes paid by home owners. In Chile, this type of tax is especially relevant since it is one of the largest sources of municipal income. To address endogeneity concerns, we use a regression discontinuity design, exploiting the quasi-experimental variation provided by close municipal elections. Our main results show that after a right-wing mayor is elected, property assessments increase up to 31% more than in a similar municipality where a left-wing mayor was elected. This effect cannot be fully explained by changes in prices or property characteristics.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e0319994 |
| Journal | PLoS ONE |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 5 MAY |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2025 Aldunate et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.