Data and Code for: Fiscal Rules and the selection of politicians: theory and evidence from Italy.

Fiscal rules, or constraints on the policymaking discretion of elected officials, are widely<br>used to regulate fiscal policies. Using data on Italian municipalities, we employ a<br>difference-in-discontinuity design to provide evidence of the negative effect of fiscal rules<br>on mayoral candidates’ education. Municipalities in which fiscal rules meaningfully<br>restrict the action space of politicians drive the effect. These results are consistent<br>with a formal model of fiscal rules and political selection. We highlight that reducing<br>discretion may affect the composition of the pool of players: it may alleviate pork-barrel<br>spending but also negatively affect the education of politicians.
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