TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bó,Ernesto Dal
AU  - Rossi,Martín
TI  - Term Length and Political Performance
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14511
PY  - 2008
Y2  - November 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14511
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14511.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ernesto Dal Bó
University of California, Berkeley
Haas School of Business
545 Student Services Building #1900
Berkeley, CA 94720-1900
Tel: 510 643 1606
E-Mail: dalbo@haas.berkeley.edu

Martín Rossi
Universidad de San Andres
Vito Dumas 284
Buenos Aires (B1644BID)
Argentina
E-Mail: mrossi@udesa.edu.ar
AB  - We evaluate the effects of the duration of legislative terms on the performance of legislators. We exploit a natural experiment in the Argentine House of Representatives where term lengths were assigned randomly. Results for various objective measures of legislative output show that longer terms enhance legislative performance. We use a second experiment in the Argentine Senate to determine whether our results are specific to a particular chamber and a particular time. The results from the Senate reinforce the idea that longer terms enhance legislative productivity. Our results highlight limits to classic theories of electoral discipline (Barro 1973, Ferejohn 1986) predicting that shorter terms, by tightening accountability, will incentivize hard work by politicians. We discuss and test possible explanations. Our results suggest that the "accountability logic" is overcome by an "investment logic."
ER  -