Is a business owner a better mayor?

Abstract This study analyzes the demographic characteristics of elected mayors in Brazil, emphasizing those who are business owners. The research observes whether mayors with a background as business owners obtain better performance in office, which is evaluated through the municipality’s fiscal situation and the IDEB (basic education development index) score. The research was conducted in two parts. The first part used logistic regression and sought to identify the profile of elected mayors. The second part analyzed whether mayors who were business owners obtained a superior performance using the multilevel regression model. The study observed that the majority of mayors had a background as business owners, but this characteristic was not significant to explain electoral success. The results of the second part did not find a correlation between mayors who are business owners and their performance. The only demographic characteristic relevant to explain differences in municipalities’ fiscal results was the mayor’s age. Therefore, mayors who were business owners did not present results different from those who have other backgrounds, which allows us to assume that this group does not have better skills and judgments. One of the limitations of this study is that the characteristic of being a business owner was obtained by self-declaration.