Do Politics or Mayors Demographics Matter For Municipal Revenue Expansion

Public Management Review
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Do Politics or Mayors' Demographics Matter for

Municipal Revenue Expansion?
Claudia N. Avellaneda
To cite this article: Claudia N. Avellaneda (2012) Do Politics or Mayors' Demographics Matter
for Municipal Revenue Expansion?, Public Management Review, 14:8, 1061-1086, DOI:
10.1080/14719037.2012.662442
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Abstract
DO POLITICS OR
This study examines whether political factors
and mayors’ demographics influence muni- MAYORS’
cipal success in expanding revenue. Data
from forty Colombian municipalities over a 7- DEMOGRAPHICS
year period (1999–2005) are used to explore
the relationship between mayoral demo-
graphics (age, sectorial experience and
MATTER FOR
education level and type) and revenue
expansion through state and national grants.
MUNICIPAL REVENUE
Results reveal that the factors affecting
approval of state grants differ from those
EXPANSION?
influencing approval of national grants. When
a mayor’s political party is aligned with that of Claudia N. Avellaneda
the governor, municipalities tend to secure
more state, but not national, grants. Munici-
pal features, such as population, local Claudia N. Avellaneda
revenues and divided government, positively Department of Political Science and Public
influence national, but not state grants. Not Administration
surprisingly, the stressful municipal context University of North Carolina-Charlotte
(presence of illegally armed guerrillas) nega- Charlotte, North Carolina
tively moderates the impact of mayors’ USA
demographics on approval of grants. If E-mail: cavellan@uncc.edu
obtaining greater revenues implies greater
social investment, this study suggests the
importance of candidates’ backgrounds when
electing mayors, at least in the Colombian
context.
Key words
Mayors’ demographics, party alignment,
intergovernmental grants, municipal revenue,
Colombia
Vol. 14 Issue 8 2012 1061–1086

Public Management Review ISSN 1471-9037 print/ISSN 1471-9045 online
Ó 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandfonline.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2012.662442
1062 Public Management Review
INTRODUCTION
To address ever-increasing public needs, governments continuously seek to expand

revenues. Local governments constitute one such example, as they continuously seek to
increase their revenues. In doing so, managers and mayors rely on two strategies:
external and internal revenue-seeking. Internal revenue strategies (taxes and fees)
cannot be easily pursued because of both political risks (elections) and economic
constraints of the constituents. As a result, managers and mayors opt for external
revenue expansion through auxiliary state and/or national grants. Although this
preference is generally shared, revenue expansion through state and/or national grants
varies considerably across localities, which leads us to question, what explains local
revenue expansion?
Revenue expansion can be viewed as an interesting measure of the entrepreneurial
activity of the leader, for it captures his/her strategies and extra activities, those more
than needed to fulfill the requirements of the job. Since a leader’s strategies may be a
function of his/her demographics, this study explores the association between leaders’
demographics and revenue expansion (a strategy) in the public sector. In doing so, the
study addresses three research needs. First, existing management strategy research has
focused on the influence of strategy content on organizational performance, but few
studies have explored the determinants of organizational strategy. As Andrews et al.
(2009a) put it, ‘very little research has been conducted . . . in the contemporary public
sector on the links between strategies and other organizational characteristics’ (732).
Second, as the link between managers’ demographics and organizational actions has
mainly been explored in the private sector, this study expands it to local governments.
Third, this study shifts the focus from developed settings, such as Texas school districts
and English local governments, to an underdeveloped setting: Colombian local
governments. As multi-service providers whose revenue expansion potentially impacts
human and economic development, these localities are particularly worthy of
investigation. Colombian municipalities constitute an appropriate setting, as the
elected mayor is encouraged – and relatively autonomous – to expand municipal
revenues, and since the position of city manager does not exist, the mayor performs not
only the political but also the administrative functions. Results reveal that the factors
affecting approval of state grants differ from those influencing approval of national
grants. When a mayor’s political party is aligned with that of the governor,
municipalities tend to secure more state, but not national grants. Municipal features,
such as population, local revenues, and divided government, positively influence
national, but not state grants; however, this influence is moderated by municipal
context.
The first section of this article defines organizational strategy and draws on upper-
echelons theory to develop direct and moderating hypotheses for the relationship
between mayors’ demographics and municipal revenue strategy. Case selection, units of
analysis, data and measure are subsequently outlined. Multivariate statistical results
Avellaneda: Municipal revenue expansion 1063
from the panel data (thirty-nine municipalities in a 7-year period, 1999–2005) are then
presented.
REVENUE EXPANSION AS GOVERNMENTAL STRATEGY
According to Hofer and Schendel (1978, 12), organizational strategy is defined as ‘the
match an organization makes between its internal resources and skills . . . and the
opportunities and risks created by its external environment’. More broadly, it is also
defined as ‘the overall way in which an organization seeks to maintain or improve its
performance’ (Andrews et al. 2007, 62). Thus, organizational strategy refers to the chosen
actions an organization undertakes for its advancement, and it mirrors the tangible and
intangible resources of the organization. Miles and Snow’s (1978) typology of four ‘‘ideal
types’ (reactor, defender, analyser and prospector) of organizational strategy represents a
seminal study in the private sector. In the public sector, one line of research has assessed the
applicability of Miles and Snow’s strategy typology in explaining organizational
performance (Andrews et al., 2007, 2009a, b; Joyce, 1999; Meier, et al. 2007; Moore,
1995). A second line of research has focused on the processes by which organizations
formulate their strategy which can be done through a three-stage process (Boyne and
Walker, 2004), two-stage process (Nicholson-Crotty, 2009), rational planning or logical
incrementalism (Andrews et al., 2009b; Elbana, 2006). However, little attention has been
given to what determines the organizational strategy, such as expansion of revenue in local
governments (see Sebaa et al., 2009 for an exception).
According to Stevens and McGown (1983, 527), ‘there is need for public
administration, organization, and management theory to address, systematically,
important aspects of public managerial strategies in cases in which the potential impact
of these strategies has significant human and long-term economic implications.’
Revenue expansion in local governments constitutes one such strategy, as it brings
potential implications for both human and long-term economic development.
Moreover, although the environment of local governments seems complex, localities
may still display strategy patterns. For instance, Stevens and McGown’s (1983) study
of ninety local governments in Pennsylvania identified five local strategy patterns: (1)
external revenue-seeking, (2) tradeoffs between autonomous versus central financing,
(3) internal revenue-seeking, (4) additional state aid and authority seeking and (5)
having the state pay high-cost items. Consequently, it seems safe to argue that revenue
expansion through external grants is among mayors and managers the most pursued
strategy. However, existing studies addressing the determinants of revenue expansion
fit within the line of research on intergovernmental grants which focus on political
explanations and neglect the potential role of leaders/managers’ demographics.
This study seeks to unpack the black box by identifying the causal mechanisms by
which managers’ demographics can influence organizational strategy on revenue
expansion.
DO MANAGERS INFLUENCE REVENUE STRATEGIES?
Management literature suggests that differences among top individuals partially explain
organizational actions (Avellaneda, 2009; Boyne, 2004; Lynn, 1981, 2003; Meier and
O’Toole, 2002). This view is also embraced by Hambrick and Mason’s (1984) ‘upper
echelons theory’. According to this theory, ‘[o]rganizational outcomes are viewed as
reflections of the values and cognitive bases of powerful actors in the organization’
(Hambrick and Mason, 1984, 193).1 The upper echelons theory (UET) assumes
individuals act under bounded rationality (March and Simon, 1958), and its core
premise is that executives’ behaviour and interpretations of the situations are a function
of their values, experiences and personalities (Finkelstein and Hambrick, 1996;
Hambrick, 2007; Hambrick and Mason, 1984).1 The theory brings in a secondary idea:
demographic characteristics of executives such as age, education and sectorial
backgrounds can be used as proxies of their cognitive frames (Hambrick and Mason,
1984). Although the UET focuses on the characteristics of the top management team
(TMT), Hambrick (2007), one of the theory’s developers, clarifies that ‘[t]he upper
echelons perspective does not require a focus on top management teams (TMTs)’; [in
fact,] ‘a number of significant contributions have examined CEOs or other individual
leaders’ (334). As a result, the demographic indicators of both the individual executive
and top management teams have been employed to explain organizational growth
(Boeker, 1997), finances (Matsunaga and Yeung, 2008), accounting (Bamber et al.,
2008) and bankruptcy (D’Aveni, 1990).2
Although UET has been tested mainly in corporate and private-sector organizations,
a few studies have applied it to public service organizations. Carmelli (2004, 2006), for
instance, explains local government performance in Israel as a function of TMT’s
demographic characteristics. Sebaa et al. (2009) find a positive relationship between
Dubai local government strategy type and managers’ demographics, and Damanpour
and Schneider’s (2009) study of 725 US local governments reports that managerial
characteristics (tenure and education) influence the adoption of innovation. In sum,
previous research suggests that managerial age, sectorial experience, type and level of
education influence both risk-taking and organizational strategy.
Managers’ demographics and revenue strategy
Age
Private research literature suggests that managerial youth tends to be associated with
organizational growth (Child, 1974; Hart and Mellons, 1970; Weinzimmer, 1997). The
rationale points at young managers’ tendency to take more risks, leading them to
diversify outputs, policies, programs and revenues (Wiersema and Bantel, 1992), which
contributes to organizational growth (Damanpour and Schneider, 2006). On the
contrary, some of the public sector literature associates young managers with
inexperience, resulting in declining and/or unpredictable performance (Kearney et al.,

2000). Meier et al. (2003) provide evidence for this contrary expectation, as they show
a consistent and positive relation between superintendents’ age and their salaries – a
proxy for managerial quality. For others, city managers’ age is not systematically
associated with strategy innovation (Damanpour and Schneider, 2009). These
inconsistent findings across private and private sectors may suggest that the age-
performance relationship may be conditioned on the nature of the task. However, as
revenue expansion in the public sector parallels profit maximization in the private
sector, this study follows the logic proposed by scholars in the private sector.
Therefore,
H1: Younger managers tend to be more successful in expanding organizational revenue.
Sectorial experience
Revenue expansion might also be influenced by managers’ sectorial experience. As
Dearborn and Simon (1958) posited, ‘[w]hen presented with the same problem,
executives with different functional areas defined the problem largely in terms of the
activities and goals of their own areas’ (see also Hambrick and Mason, 1984, 197). In
local governments, managers come to office with different background experience in
either the private and/or public sector. Once in charge, and with some autonomy,
previous sector experience should be reflected in a manager’s strategies. As Hambrick
and Mason (1984, 194) state, ‘[a] chief executive brought in from outside the industry
will tend to steer the firm into new business relatively vulnerable in the short run’. For
instance, public managers coming from the private sector may adopt more business-
oriented strategies. These public managers are more likely to be classified as
prospectors, according to Myles and Snow’s typology of strategy type. Hence, private
sector experience tends to be exploited by political candidates who sometimes
campaign on the premises of bringing into the public sector their good practices in the
private sector. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in the United States, for example,
has stressed, among others things, his record in the private sector. Therefore,
H2: Public managers coming from the private and/or business sector are more successful in expanding
organizational revenue.
Education level
Like age and sectorial experience, a manager’s education might also influence revenue
expansion. Education is associated with technological and administrative innovation
(Bantel and Jackson, 1989; Damanpour and Schneider, 2006; Kimberly and Evanisko,
1981). One view contends that ‘[p]rofessionally trained managers may view situations
differently from those without a college degree’ (Hambrick and Mason, 1984, 203).
A contrary view, however, suggests that neither type nor degree of education has a
substantive effect, as they only serve as a filtering device for matching up individuals and
jobs (Pfeffer, 1981). Empirical evidence supports a positive relationship between
education and strategy. For example, Wiersema and Bantel (1992) find that managers
with higher educational levels are more likely to undergo changes in organizational
strategy. In their study of 725 US city managers, Damanpour and Scheneider (2009)
also found support for the education-innovation/strategy association. Likewise,
Avellaneda’s (2009) study of Colombian mayors also reports support for a mayoral
education-municipal performance association. Consequently,
H3: The higher a manager’s level of educational achievement, the more successful s/he is in expanding
organizational revenue.
Education type
The type of education a manager pursues might also influence organizational strategies
(Hall, 2001; Holland, 1973; Wiersema and Bantel, 1992). Bertrand and Schoar (2003)
argue that CEOs with a MBA seem to follow the ‘textbook guidelines’, take more risks
and be less responsive to cash flow availability. Managers with law degrees may also
follow the ‘textbook’, as they know and/or pay more attention to the legal, technical
and administrative requirements and consequences of possible strategies. While some
research reports that education type (administration versus non- administration) has no
influence on managers’ strategies (Kimberly and Evanisko, 1981), Bertrand and
Schoar’s (2003) study finds that managers who hold an MBA degree tend to adopt more
aggressive strategies. Wiersema and Bantel’s (1992) study also finds that managers with
training in sciences are more likely to diversify organizational strategy. Therefore,
H4: Managers with law and/or administration education are more successful in expanding organizational
revenues.
Organizational context: The moderating factor

The potential role that an individual manager can have in his/her organization is
moderated by his/her level of discretion or autonomy (Hambrick and Finkelstein,
1987). Yet, managers’ discretion is not only directly determined by the organizational
rules but also indirectly determined by the organizational context. Managerial jobs
differ widely not only in terms of difficulty but also in terms of context. For example,
climate, geographic, demographic and other environmental factors (including stressful
situations) can affect organizational strategies because leaders redirect their attention
and resources to address an event (Rubin, 1998 [2000]). In these situations,
‘[i]ndividual strategies have to be framed in a broader context than simply perceived
self-interest, dispositions and backgrounds’ (Rubin, 1998 [2000], 34). Moreover,
operating under stressful situations (akin to facing heavy job demands) may lead
managers to take mental shortcuts (Hambrick et al., 2005) instead of adopting more
comprehensive analysis and decision-making practices, implying that context has a
negative conditional effect on managers’ actions and decisions. In other words, ‘choices
will more greatly match the objective conditions [managers] confront’ (Hambrick,
2007, 336). While some contexts will intensify the positive impact that managers’
backgrounds have on revenue expansion strategies, others contexts will not. Boyne and
Walker (2005) and O’Toole and Meier (1999) point out the moderating effect that
context has on managers’ choices and, in turn, on organizational performance.
Therefore,
H5: The influence of a manager’s demographics on revenue expansion is negatively moderated by a

stressful municipal context.
IS THERE POLITICS IN PURSUING REVENUE EXPANSION?
As mentioned earlier, much of the existing literature addressing the determinants of

local revenue do so under the research umbrella of intergovernmental transfers. Within
it, theoretical (Cox and McCubbins, 1986; Dixit and Londregan, 1998) and empirical
studies seek to explain the political motives determining the allocation of inter-
governmental transfers (Brollo and Nannicini, 2010; Case, 2001; Johansson, 2003;
Solé-Ollé and Sorribas-Navarro, 2008). Among the political motives, the impact of
partisan alignment on state and federal transfers has received considerable attention.
There are two hypotheses for the co-partisan-intergovernmental grants relationship.
One points to the political effect that additional grants may have on jurisdictions with
high number of ‘swing voters’ (Dixit and Londregan, 1998; Lindbeck and Weibull,
1987). The alternative hypothesis suggests that due to risk aversion, grants tend to be
allocated to co-partisan jurisdictions (Cox and McCubbins, 1986).
Although some point out both the difficulty of separating these two hypotheses
(Rodden and Wilkinson, 2004) and the endogeneity problem inherent in grants,
evidence supports both views. For instance, for 255 Swedish municipalities during the
years 1981–1995, Johansson (2003) finds that intergovernmental transfers are used to
win votes. Likewise, Mejı́a Guinand et al.’s (2009) study of Colombian municipalities
from 2004 to 2006 reports that budgetary allocations for road infrastructure projects
were used to win the vote in localities whose party affiliation did not align with that of
the president. Dahlberg and Johansson (2002) also provide evidence, although weak, in
favour of the ‘swing voters’ hypothesis. On the other hand, Brollo and Nannicini (2010)
find that Brazilian municipalities in which the mayor is affiliated with the coalition of the
President received larger transfers (about 36–43 per cent) in the last 2 years of the
term. Likewise, Solé-Ollé and Sorribas-Navarro (2008) find that in Spanish
municipalities, grants given to co-partisans led to some political support while grants
given to opposition parties brought no more votes. The plausibility of both hypotheses
calls for further testing. Therefore,
H6: Partisan alignment positively influences revenue expansion.
CASE SELECTION: COLOMBIAN MUNICIPALITIES
This research tests the theoretical propositions in thirty-nine Colombian local

governments. Equivalent to the US counties, Colombian municipalities enjoy
extensive fiscal (since 1983) and political (since 1988) decentralization, granting
them sufficient autonomy in designing, funding and implementing policies and
programs. Based on both population size and the amount of revenue collected,
municipalities are classified into seven categories. In Colombia, and in most Latin
American countries, there is a unique local form: ‘a strong, elected mayor’. This
contrasts with the US’s two forms of local government – council-manager and mayor-
council – and the UK’s four forms of local political leadership – mayoral models
(elected mayor with cabinet and elected mayor with a council manager) and non-
mayoral models (cabinet with leader and modified committee system). As the position
of city manager does not exist, Colombian mayors perform both political and
administrative functions. This has led some to call the mayor the hombre orquesta (one-
man band) because s/he is ‘in charge of most activities that require a certain degree of
qualification’ (Fiszbein, 1997, 1037).
Unlike US city managers who perform only the administrative functions and are
professional public administrators with extensive training in public policy (Feiock and
Stream, 1998), Colombian mayors come with different professional (if any) and
sectorial backgrounds. To complement mayoral education and experience, the central
government provides mayors, once elected, with a short 1-week training course in
public administration. The Colombian Constitution of 1991 (Articles 311–21) stipulates
a legislative body that oversees a directly elected mayor. This municipal council is
concurrently elected for a 4-year period and consists of no fewer than seven and no
more than twenty-one members based on municipal population. Since 2004, mayors
are elected for 4-year terms – adding 1 year to the previous three-year period –
without immediate re-election.
In contrast to the United States, most Colombian municipal spending is financed with
the transfers from the central government. Unlike the earmarked transfers,
municipalities own revenues – collected from royalties, service provisions, property
and commerce tax and sales of their own assets and/or service provisions – can be spent
in any sector.3 In addition to these sources, a municipality can submit grant proposals to
the national and state level to receive monies to co-finance projects or programs. The
quality, justification and clarity of the proposal determine the award of co-financing
monies. However, very few mayors employ this tool either for lack of motivation, lack
of information and/or perceptions of few chances of succeeding, which makes this

measure a good indicator of revenue expansion strategy.
RESEARCH DESIGN
The unit of analysis in this study is municipality-year. Data collection involved field
visits to the forty Colombian municipalities of the department (state) of Norte de
Santander as well as interviews with mayors and ex-mayors, information from mayoral
surveys and copies of government documents. The department of Norte de Santander
was selected for several reasons. First, it has a considerable number of municipalities
(forty). As of December 2010, Colombia had 1,101 municipalities; the department
with the fewest number (2) is Amazonas and the largest number (125) is Antioquia. In
terms of development, this department is marred by poverty (57.5 per cent), indigence
(18.4 per cent), and human underdevelopment (schooling averages 8.2 years and
deficits in sewage of 25 per cent and running water of 14 per cent) (La Opinión, 2007).
However, the development indicators, and all the variables of interest, vary across the
forty municipalities. Finally, personal contacts in this department facilitated data
collection.
Data availability limited data collection to a 7-year period (1999–2005). Given the
Colombian mayoral electoral cycle, this study covers three mayoral administrations:
the last 2 years of the 1998–2000 (1999 and 2000) administration; the 3 years of
the 2001–2003 administration; and the first 2 years of the 2004–2007 administra-
tion. Unless a municipality holds elections on a day that is different from the one
nationally scheduled (usually in October) – because of extraordinary reasons, such as a
mayor’s death – the mayoral inauguration occurs on January 1. Because the beginning
of the mayoral administration coincides with the beginning of the calendar year, it
is possible to associate annual municipal indicators with a specific mayoral
administration.
VARIABLE DEFINITION AND OPERATIONALIZATION
Revenue expansion
It is important to clarify that the drivers affecting the amount of grants received may
be very different from the factors affecting a mayor’s motivation to apply for grants.4
As in this study, the hypotheses are framed in terms of success in getting the grants;
two dependent variables capture grant success: funds received from state and national
grants. Both types of revenue are different from the mandatory central transfers, so
they truly represent additional revenue monies, as they capture the efforts beyond
what is needed to do the job. Moreover, by disaggregating grants, the study allows us
to determine whether factors influencing state grants vary from those explaining
national levels. Yet, the study also reports the analysis for total grants (state and
national).
At the national level and every year, each ministry’s web site lists the call for
proposals for co-financed projects under its respective control. The calls also list
deadlines and required format and methodology. At the state level, the web page of
each ministry’s respective state secretary also lists the calls for proposals. In cases where
a mayor or mayoralty has no access to the internet,5 a mayor can still obtain the list of
calls for proposals just by paying a personal visit to each ministry’s state secretary. Some
grants demand municipal cooperation. Dr. Cuadros6 – an officer at the Territorial
Development Section at the Ministry of Housing—states that in order to grant monies
for housing projects, the mayor has to guarantee both land availability and provision of
basic services (water, sewage and electricity). Other than that, each municipality is
eligible to submit a housing proposal.
Nevertheless, a call for proposal’s technical requirements may be not only
overwhelming but also expensive. The treasurer Elizabeth Gonzalez7 of the
municipality of Tibú, in the state of Norte de Santander, states that some call for
proposals demand studies of land, risk and topographic assessments, which entail
tedious procedures and expensive costs. These costs bring extra financial burden
especially for small and poor municipalities.8 Some of the mayors overcome these
obstacles by sharing with other municipalities the services of architects, lawyers,
accountants, etc. This behaviour illustrates what a mayor can do in order to overcome
obstacles. The same mechanisms apply for call of proposals at the state level. However,
given the proximity (territorial and functional) between a municipality and its
respective governor, in approving state grants besides technical requirements other
drivers, such as political ones, may play a role. The values for state, national and total
grants are reported per capita (Colombian pesos) to make the measures comparable
across municipalities. Moreover, they are reported in thousands of Colombian pesos
and logged to reduce skewness. Table 1 lists the descriptive statistics for all the
variables.
Mayor’s demographics
This study uses four observable demographic and/or background indicators on mayors:
age, sectorial experience, level and type of education. ‘Unlike psychological
dimensions: such as cognitive bases, values, and perceptions, which are not
conveniently measurable or not amenable to measure, background characteristics are
observable measures’ (Hambrick and Mason, 1984, 196).9 Data collection involved
author’s field visits to the forty municipalities of the department of Norte de Santander,
interviews with mayors and ex-mayors, information from mayoral surveys and copies or
governmental documents.
Table 1: Descriptive statistics.
Variables Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Dependent variables
State grants/per capita (Col. pesos) 6.67 15.80 0 212.35
National grants/per capita (Col. Pesos) 18.44 25.07 0 248.93
Independent variables
Mayor’s age (continuous) 42 7 24 61
Mayor’s sectorial experience
Public sector (1¼yes) 0.55 0.49 0 1
Education sector (1¼yes) 0.02 0.16 0 1
Agricultural sector (1¼yes) 0.12 0.32 0 1
Private sector (1¼yes) 0.38 0.48 0 1
Mayor’s education years (continuous) 13.07 3.04 5 17
Mayor’s education type
Administration/legal career (1¼yes) 0.26 0.44 0 1
Context
Guerrilla presence*—continuous 330.06 1386.47 0 14,327
Mayor-Governor same party 0.45 0.49 0 1
Mayor-President same party 0.47 0.50 0 1
Control variables
Budget (million Col. pesos) 7882.844 2.79e þ 07 1,028,112 2.82e þ 08
Population (thousands) 35237.42 106,363 2768 742,689
Poverty (thousands) 30495.29 84870.98 2224 588,879
Mayor’s conservative ideology (1¼yes) 0.25 0.43 0 1
Ex-mayor (1¼yes, 0¼no) 0.20 0.40 0 1
Divided government (1¼yes) 0.46 0.49 0 1
Note: *Number of people displaced by illegal armed groups.
Age
It is a continuous variable. For some, I collected the information from personal

interviews; for others, I relied on friends, relatives and mayoralty employees and
archives at the gubernatorial office.
Sectorial experience
This categorical variable is classified into four sectors that encompass most of the
mayoral functional tracks: public, private, educational and agricultural sector. The four
categories are included in the model because they are not mutually exclusive. That is, a
mayor may come to office with previous experience in both the private and public
sectors or with previous experience in both the agricultural and public sectors. Mayors
with experience in more than one sector were included in as many categories as s/he
fits in. Given this, the excluded category includes those mayors who came to office with
no evident experience in any of the four sectors because s/he either was unemployed
before coming to office or was a college (or high school) student before being a mayoral
candidate, with no work experience in a particular sector.
Level of educational achievement
Most of the Latin American Constitutions require no level of education to be a mayoral

candidate. As a result, this continuous variable ranges from only 4 years of education
(incomplete primary) to 17 years (master’s degree).
Type of education
Not all the Colombian mayors come to office with a professional career. Some mayors
pursue sales, bakery, ranching, farming, carpentry, etc. and some are even
unemployed. Others are lawyers, administrators, engineers, architects, topographers,
physicians, microbiologists, priests and school teachers. Without denying the potential
benefits of each profession, administration and legal careers are expected to add to
revenue expansion due to the technical knowledge they bring. Therefore, for these
careers, the analysis adds a dummy variable which receives ‘1’. Sergio Fajardo, a
Colombian ex-mayor, mathematician and a potential Colombian presidential candidate,
reinforces the idea that a mayor’s type of education can influence municipal actions:
‘[a]n entrepreneur or a lawyer comes to public office with her/his own way of
understanding the world, while those who work in academics come to office with a
different perspective’ (author’s translation, El Tiempo, 2009).
Municipal context
In this study, municipal stress is assessed by the presence of illegally armed groups, as mayors
fear the armed groups. In the Colombian case, mayors are constantly exposed to threats
from two guerrilla (FARC and ELN) and paramilitary (AUC) groups, forcing mayors to
either quit or work from a distance. Between 1987 and 1995, twenty-nine mayors and
sixty-five municipal councillors were murdered in Colombia, and 102 mayors and fifty-
eight municipal councillors were kidnapped (Rangel, 1997, 57). According to the
Colombian Federation of Municipalities, from 1998 to April 2010, guerrillas have
assassinated seventy-four mayors. The Ombudsman (Defensorı́a del Pueblo) reported that
as of August 2011, nineteen candidates to local and subnational positions have been killed in
the states of Valle, Cauca, Antioquia, Córdoba y Putumayo; forty-four have been
threatened and four have been attacked (El Tiempo, 2011). According to the United Nations
Refugee Agency, from 1993 to 2004, Colombian illegally armed groups killed 800 officials,
including mayors, councilmen and mayoral candidates. Norte de Santander, the department
under study, ranks eighth at the national level in assassinations of local officials (ACNUR,
n.d). On 27 January 2007, seven of the mayors interviewed for this study were absent from
their municipalities because of threats issued by the Front 33 guerillas of the Revolutionary
Armed Front of Colombia. The seven mayors even resigned their positions, but the
governor declined to accept on the grounds that illegal pressure had motivated them rather
than the mayors’ own will (El Tiempo, 2007a). In response, the army commander of the
region activated the Grandfather Plan in order to increase public forces in the
municipalities. According to Gilberto Toro, president of the Colombian Federation of
Municipalities, at the beginning of 2000, 40 per cent of mayors administered their localities
from another city (El Tiempo, 2007b).
Because illegally armed groups inhabit rural areas, peasants have no option but to
move to the closest urban municipality. That, by itself, does not guarantee security, but
it does provide more protection. The number of people displaced by violence who
migrate to each municipality’s urban area is an indirect measure of the presence of
illegal group influence in a municipal area. Rather than using a dummy variable for the
presence of illegal groups, this continuous measure quantifies the intensity of the
municipal constraint. The values are expressed per year and per municipality. The staff
of the branch of the Observatory for Human Rights, located at the governor’s office in
the capital of Norte de Santander, provided this information, which is collected yearly.
After logging this variable to reduce skewness, it is used as an interaction term with the
mayor’s age, sectorial experience and level and type of educational achievement. A
negative coefficient for these interactions would provide support for the hypothesized
moderating effect.
Partisan alignment
To measure party alignment at the state level, a dummy variable is coded ‘1’ when
there is mayor-governor ideological convergence; otherwise ‘0’. To measure party
alignment at the national level, a dummy variable is coded ‘1’ for when the mayor and
president exhibit the same political party; otherwise ‘0’. Although co-financed national
grants can come from different institutions whose directors’ partisanship is not publicly
known, mayors’ party alignment with the president’s may still benefit mayors, as many
directors of these national entities are appointed by the president. Moreover, since
party alignment at the national level might influence mayor’s appealing for extra grants
at the state level, and since partisan alignment at the state level might influence mayor’s
appealing for extra grants at the national level, each estimation model – state grants and
national grants – includes both types of party alignment. The study covers two
presidential terms, one conservative (1998–2002) and one liberal (2002–2006), which
are not concurrent to the mayoral administration. Likewise, the study includes three
gubernatorial terms, 1999–2000, 2001–2003 and 2004–2005, all of which were
conservative and whose administration period is concurrent to the mayor’s.
Control variables
To avoid misattributing municipality effects to mayors’ demographic characteristics and

to avoid omitted variables problem, the study controls for municipal budget (thousands of
Colombian pesos), population and poverty.10 The study also controls for mayors’ ideology
because the ‘government ideology thesis’ suggests that parties are not only vote seekers
but also office and policy seekers (Petry, 1982). While Conservatives prefer low
spending and low taxes, Liberals prefer high spending and high taxes. Consequently,
Liberals are expected to seek more revenue in order to have more resources to spend.
Some empirical studies support these propositions (Alt and Lowry, 1994).
Historically, Colombia maintained a two-party system, liberal and conservative, but
in the last two decades, dissidents from the traditional parties have created several small
and new parties, numbering fifty-nine in the 2006 congressional elections.11 The
proliferation of parties makes it difficult to have two clear ideological cuts to test the
government ideology thesis. Therefore, the study compares conservative mayors against
all others, which are associated with a more liberal ideology. With a dummy variable
for ex-mayors, the study also controls for mayors who serve more than one term, non-
consecutively, as they might be ahead in terms of knowing the procedures and the
potential revenue sources. The Colombian Constitution prohibits immediate re-election
but does allow non-immediate re-election.
The study also controls for divided government. The logic is that under divided
government, it is more difficult for executives to pass legislation, for example, on
spending (Alt and Lowry, 1994; Clingermayer and Wood, 1995), encouraging mayors
to look for additional revenue sources which might come with specific targets, thus
avoiding approval from the legislature. It is a dummy variable coded ‘1’ when at least
51% of the councilmen do not belong to the mayor’s party; otherwise ‘0’. Finally, the
study also controls for the administrative year (dummy variables for first and second year;
third year, which happens to be the election year, is the excluded category).
MODEL AND VARIABLE DEFINITION
The same model is estimated for the three dependent variables: state, national and total
grants.
Yit ¼ Yit1 þ a þ bXit þ bMayor’s Demographicsit þ tt þ gi þ eit ð1Þ
where Yit71 is the lag dependent variable because one year’s state grants might
influence the next year’s revenues Yit. Xit refers to known and expected socioeconomic
determinants of municipal revenues. Mayor’s Demographicsit is mayors’ demographic
effects, tt is the control for time effects, gi is the control for municipality effects and eit
is the error term.
Table 2 reports Arellano-Bond estimates with robust standard errors for state,
national and total grants. These estimates adequately deal with the problems created by
dependence among the observations. Moreover, these estimates are specific for panel
data analyses that include a lag of the dependent variable as one of the independent
variables (Arellano and Bond, 1991). In fact, one year’s state (or national) additional
revenues may influence the next year’s state (or national) additional revenues. Due to
this inclusion, autocorrelation might be an issue; however, the Arellano-Bond statistics
suggest there is first but no second-order autocorrelation in the first difference of the
residuals.12 Moreover, the Sargan tests of over identifying restrictions report that the
null hypothesis (H0: over identifying restrictions are valid) cannot be rejected, meaning
that model specification is correct. The estimated coefficients correspond to the first
differences of all independent variables. After lagging the dependent variable and taking
the first difference, 2 years of data are lost. Moreover, the influence and leverage
diagnostics reveal that the observations of one specific municipality overly influence the
estimations; therefore, the number of groups is reduced to thirty-nine, and the number
of observations is 170.
State grants
Results reveal that the estimation on the lag of the dependent variable is not statistically
significant, meaning that in explaining expansion of municipal revenues via state grants,
one year’s state grants do not influence the next year’s state grants. In general, the
estimates reveal that both stressful municipal context and politics, but not mayors’
demographics, have a direct impact on state grants. Specifically, the coefficient on
guerrilla presence is negative and significant at the 0.05 level, meaning stressful context
has a negative impact on state grants. Because both the dependent and the independent
term are log-transformed variables, in econometrics, this relationship is referred to as
elastic. That is, all else being equal, in municipalities whose number of people who
forcefully migrate from a rural to an urban area increases by one percentage point (it is
a log-transformed value), state grants tends to decrease by two times (224 per cent).
As predicted, municipal context seems to negatively moderate mayoral age,
education, sector experience and education years, thus supporting partially H5. The
coefficient on the interactive term age6guerrilla is negative and statistically significant at
the 0.05 level. Again, recall that both the dependent and the independent term are log-
transformed variables. Therefore, all else being equal, in municipalities whose number
of people who forcefully migrate from a rural to an urban area increases by one
Table 2: Arellano-Bond estimates with Huber-White SE for municipalities’ additional departmental and
national co-financed revenues (1999-–2005).
Variables in first difference State grants (ln) National grants (ln) Total grants (ln)
Lag of state grants (lg) 70.03 (0.09)

Lag of national grants (lg) 70.13 (0.09)
Lag of total grants (lg) 70.17 (0.11)
Mayor’s age 70.02 (0.03) 0.02 (0.33) 0.01 (0.39)
Mayor’s sectorial experience
Public sector 0.67 (0.56) 0.85 (0.66) 1.52 (0.90)*
Education sector 70.24 (0.58) 0.59 (0.61) 0.81 (0.96)
Agricultural sector 0.03 (0.60) 0.17 (0.61) 1.10 (0.75)
Private sector 1.06 (0.70) 1.01 (0.78) 2.18 (1.17)*
Mayor’s education level
Mayor’s education years 70.01 (0.07) 0.01 (0.07) 0.09 (0.10)
Mayor’s education type
Administration/law career 0.31 (0.47) 0.44 (0.48) 70.24 (0.51)
Context: stressful context
Guerrilla presence (ln) 72.24 (1.07)** 0.38 (0.67) 70.83 (1.26)
Moderating effects
Age6Guerrilla (ln) 0.03 (0.01)** 70.01 (0.11) 70.01 (0.01)
Public sector6Guerrilla (ln) 70.18 (0.35) 70.82 (0.32)** 71.17 (0.45)**
Education sector6Guerrilla (ln) 70.84 (0.39)** 0.37 (0.87) 70.41 (0.67)
Agricultural Sector6Guerrilla (ln) 0.24 (0.43) 70.17 (0.35) 70.21 (0.51)
Private6Guerrilla (ln) 70.52 (0.33) 70.69 (0.34)** 71.31 (0.46)***
Education years6Guerrilla (ln) 0.10 (0.04)** 0.05 (0.03) 0.11 (0.05)**
Administration/Law6Guerrilla (ln) 70.20 (0.24) -70.29 (0.24) 70.39 (0.34)
Mayor-Governor same party 0.63 (0.32)** 70.21 (0.34) 0.27 (0.50)
Mayor-President same party 70.43 (0.27) 0.06 (0.25) 70.47 (0.37)
Controls
Total revenues (ln) 7.57 (6.70) 2.52 (0.47)*** 3.01 (0.75)***
Population (ln) 8.72 (7.48) 15.63 (7.16)** 24.07 (10.10)**
Poverty 0.00 (0.00) 70.00 (0.00) 70.00 (0.00)
Mayor’s conservative ideology 0.61 (0.47) 0.01 (0.38) 0.80 (0.61)
Ex-mayor 70.02 (0.25) 70.75 (0.26)*** 70.75 (0.38)**
Divided government 70.21 (0.29) 0.54 (0.21)** 0.33 (0.35)
First administration year 70.12 (0.18) 70.43 (0.20)** 70.69 (0.27)**
Second administration year 0.29 (0.28) 70.44 (0.23)* 70.31 (0.41)
Number of observations 170 170 170
Number of groups 39 39 39
Wald w2(24); p 4 w2 353.84; 0.00 511.55; 0.00 536.88
Sargant Test; p 4 w2 0.47 0.50 0.30
Arellano-Bond Test AR(2); p 4 z 0.81 0.10 0.34
Note: ***p 5 0.001; **p 5 0.05. *p 5 0.10 (one-tailed test).

percentage point (it is a log-transformed value), the impact of mayor’s age on state
grants tends to decrease by 3 per cent. Likewise, the coefficient on the interactive term
education sector6guerrilla (log-transformed) is negative and significant at the 0.05 level.
Therefore, all else being equal, in municipalities whose number of people who
forcefully migrate from a rural to an urban area increases by one percentage point (it is
a log-transformed value), the impact that mayor’s education sector experience has on
state grants tends to decrease by 84 per cent. Figure 1 illustrates this interaction by
showing that as the intensity of the stressful situation increases, the impact of mayors’
experience in the educational sector on state grants tends to decrease.
Contrary to expectations, municipal context also moderates, although positively, the
impact of mayors’ education on revenue expansion through state grants. The coefficient
on the interactive term education years6guerrilla is positive and significant at the 0.05
level. Recall that both the dependent and the interactive term are log-transformed
variables; therefore, all else being equal, in municipalities whose number of people who
forcefully migrate from a rural to an urban area increases by one percentage point, the
impact that mayor’s education years has on state grants tends to increase by 10 per cent.
On the other side, results suggest that mayor-governor same party and first administration
year are positively related to state grants. All else being equal, and as expected,
municipalities whose mayors have the same party as the governor’s tend to receive
more state grants per capita, roughly 87 per cent more [100 (exp (b) 7 1)]13 than
those localities whose mayors do not align ideologically with the governor.14 Therefore,
Figure 1: Marginal effect of mayoral education sector experience on state grants as the stressful situation
varies.
H6 receives support. Mayors’ party alignment with the president is not statistically
significant. Finally, none of the control variables reports statistical significance.
National grants
Table 2 also reports the estimations for the national grants (logged). The estimates
reveal that neither politics nor mayor’s demographics influence municipal revenues
expansion through national grants. In other words, the mechanisms that explain national
grants differ from those that explain state grants. On the contrary, municipal context
also seems to negatively moderate the impact that some of the mayors’ demographics
have on national grants. Specifically, the coefficient on the interactive terms public
sector6guerrilla (log-transformed) and private sector6guerrilla (log-transformed) are
negative and significant at the 0.05 level. That is, all else being equal, in municipalities
whose number of people who forcefully migrate from a rural to an urban area increases
by one percentage point, the impact that mayor’s public and private sector experience
have on national grants tends to decrease by 82 and 69 per cent, respectively. Figures 2
and 3 illustrate these interactions by showing that as the intensity of the stressful
situation increases, the impact of mayors’ experience in both the public and private
sector on national grants tends to decrease.
Figure 2: Marginal effect of mayoral private sector experience on national grants as the stressful situation
varies.
Figure 3: Marginal effect of mayoral public sector experience on national grants as the stressful situation
varies.
Unlike the state grant model, in explaining revenue expansion through national
grants, six control variables report statistical significance, total revenues, poverty, ex-mayor,
divided government and first and second administration at the 0.05 level. All else being equal,
municipalities with larger budgets and larger populations tend to receive more national
grants. Likewise, municipalities operating under divided government tend to receive
more national grants compared to those that operate under unified government. On the
contrary, the larger the percentage of people under the poverty line in a municipality,
the fewer the national grants; however, the real impact is very little. Finally, all else
being equal, municipalities whose mayors have been mayors before (but not in the
immediate previous administration) tend to receive fewer national grants, compared to
those municipalities whose mayors had no local leadership experience. Likewise, all else
being equal, mayors in the first and second administration tend to receive fewer
national grants compared to mayors in their third administration, which is also the
election year (the excluded category).
Total grants
Table 2 also reports the estimations for total grants (national and state grants). The
estimates reveal that mayor’s demographics, but not politics, influence municipal
revenue expansion through total grants. The coefficients on mayors’ public sector and
private sector experience are positive and statistically significant, although only at the
0.10 level, thus supporting H2. Assuming that their respective interaction terms, public
sector6guerrilla and private sector6guerrilla, equal ‘0’ – that is, there is no presence of
illegally armed groups – and after holding all else constant, compared to mayors with
no defined sectorial experience (the excluded category), mayors with a background in
the public sector tend to increase total grants by 109 per cent (357 per cent) [100 (exp
(b – V(b)/2) – 1)]; and mayors with a background in the private sector tend to increase
total grants by almost twice (194 per cent) [100 (exp (b – V(b)/2) – 1)].15 However,
municipal context seems to negatively moderate their positive impact on total grants.
Specifically, the coefficient on the interaction terms public sector6guerrilla and private
sector6guerrilla are negative and significant at the 0.05 level. That is, all else being
equal, as the intensity of the stressful situation increases, the impact of mayors’ public
and private sector experience on total grants tends to decrease.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
This study explores whether politics or mayors’ demographic characteristics influence

municipal revenue expansion through success of the approval process for state and
national grants. The study focuses on forty Colombian municipalities from 1999 to
2005. Mayors’ demographics are operationalized as mayors’ age, sectorial experience
and education level and type, which are proxies for managers’ values and cognitive
bases (Hambrick, 2007; Hambrick and Mason, 1984). The studied period covered three
mayoral administrations (1999–2000, 2001–2003 and 2004–2005). Colombian
municipalities are appropriate settings to test the revenue expansion-manager’s
demographics association because in these localities, as in most of Latin America, the
political and administrative manager is embodied in a single actor: the ‘elected mayor’.
As a result, and due to the few constitutional requirements for local leadership, mayors’
demographics vary considerably across localities.
The study explored the driver mechanisms that explain municipal revenue expansion
by focusing on two types of extra revenues: state and national. Results suggest that the
driver mechanisms influencing the approval process of state grants differ from those
influencing the approval process of national grants. Therefore, state and national grants
should be explained separately. The study also focused on total grants (state and
national). In explaining approval success for total grants (including state and national),
findings suggest that mayors’ sectorial experience influences municipal revenue
expansion. Specifically, mayors coming from the private and public sector tend to be
more successful in getting approved total grants (including state and national) than those
mayors without a defined sectorial experience. These findings are in tune with other
studies in the public sector which finds a positive relationship between city
managers’ background characteristics and (1) their decision to innovate in the US
(Damanpour and Schneider, 2009); (2) their strategy type – prospector, defender or
reactor – in Dubai local governments (Sebaa et al., 2009) and (3) their collecting
efficiency ratio in Israel municipalities (Carmelli, 2006). The results contradict partly
both those who suggest that the influence of individual top managers on organizational
actions is quite limited (Lieberson and O’Connor, 1972; Salanick and Pfeffer, 1977)
and those who argue that the selection and socialization processes induce homogeneity
in organizational strategies (Datz, 2000).
Yet, the positive influence that mayors’ sectorial experience has on approval of grants
is negatively moderated by the municipal context, such as the presence of illegally
armed groups. That is, the greater the guerrilla presence – indirectly measured by the
number of people who forcefully moved from the rural to the urban area because of
violence – the more likely that the positive impact of having a mayor with private and
public sector experience has on revenue expansion will decrease. In other words, under
difficult circumstances, mayors might have to focus their time and skills on dealing with
the stressful situation, thus shifting their attention towards other goals and priorities.
The stressful situation could also demoralize mayors, thus inhibiting them from seeking
more resources. This is bad news for the Colombians, who still struggle to overcome
the negative effects that the illegally armed groups impose on society.
After disaggregating total grants into state and national ones, results suggest that
mayors’ background characteristics statistically add nothing to the success of the
approval process for state and national grants, which is opposite to the expectations.
In explaining approval success of state grants, the study reveals that politics is more
likely to play a role at the state level but not at the national level. Municipalities
whose mayors are affiliated to the same party as their governor tend to receive more
state but not national grants. In other words, municipalities whose mayors’ ideology
differs from the governor’s are destined to receive very little (if any) from state
coffers.
On the other hand, in explaining success of the approval of national grants, factors
related to the municipal context seem to have more explanatory power. Specifically,
population, local revenues and divided government are positively correlated to national
grants. Mayors in the first and second year of the administration tend to receive fewer
national grants compared to mayors in the third year of the administration. Results also
suggest that municipalities whose incumbent mayors were mayors in the past (but not in
the previous period – as the law prohibits it) tend to receive fewer national grants.
These ex-mayors may give up on reaching out for extra resources, as there are no
incentives to be re-elected again. Results also suggest that stressful municipal context
tends to negatively moderate the impact that mayoral experience in the public and
private sectors may have on both state and national grants.14 In sum, what this research
suggests is that at the state level, politics seem to be the driving force in assigning
additional monies – a pattern very difficult to break. However, more data collection
should tell us whether liberal mayor-governor alignment is more oriented to bargaining
than conservative mayor-governor political alignments.16
This study represents one of the few undertakings exploring the influence of public
managers’ demographics on revenue expansion in a developing country. It did so by
testing whether better trained mayors are more successful in attracting financial support
for their municipal organizations. The evidence suggests that a mayor’s demographics
matter in explaining municipal revenue expansion; however, this positive effect is not
consistent across all types of grants. Therefore, future research should explore (1) the
effect of other background characteristics, such as background checks, on revenue
expansion; (2) the role that managers’ demographics in explaining other dimensions of
performance, such as equity and investment patterns, etc.; (3) the impact of mayors’
experience (knowledge gained by doing and seeing) versus expertise (expert
knowledge); (4) the potential moderating effect of other measures of collective
violence on organizational strategies; (5) whether revenue expansion is directly or
indirectly affected by budgetary imbalances across expenditure categories and (6)
whether municipal grant seeking triggers either income and/or substitution grant
effect.
NOTES
1 For a comprehensive review of upper echelons theory and research, see Finkelstein and Hambrick (1996),
Carpenter et al. (2004) and Finkelstein et al. (2008).
2 Critics of upper echelons theory suggest that the influence of individual top managers is quite limited
(Lieberson and O’Connor, 1972; Salanick and Pfeffer, 1977). For others, selection and socialization process
of top executives induce homogeneity in organizational choices and actions (Datz, 2000).
3 With the national transfers, mayors are told ‘where to spend’ the money, but not ‘how to do it’. Mayors
cover operational costs with local own revenues – not from national transfers – and these costs must not
exceed a certain percentage of total revenues.
4 The author is thankful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. If the study were focused on the
drivers explaining a mayor’s motivations to apply for grants, the dependent variable would be the number of
grant applications submitted by each municipality.
5 Since 2008, municipalities are required to have a webpage whose layout is the same across all the
municipalities. The ministry of communications provided both the technical assistance and material resources
for this end.
6 Phone conversation with author on 19 September 2011.
7 Phone conversation with author on 15 September 2011.
8 Law no. 136/1994 prohibits mayors from ending the fiscal year with a deficit. Therefore, deficit is an
inappropriate indicator for assessing local public finance, as no variation is expected.
9 However, and as Hambrick and Mason (1984, 196) acknowledge, ‘[d]emographic indicators may contain
more noise than purer psychological measures. That is, managerial education may serve as an indicator of
socioeconomic background, motivation, cognitive style, risk propensity and other underlying traits’.
10 Based on income level, Colombians households are classified into one out of six social stratified categories;
six is the highest income category. This variable measures the number of people within the two lowest
categories.
11 Some suggest that the proliferation of parties represents the transition from a generalized Liberal Party to
local conservative party leadership. Nevertheless, the advent of numerous parties has created incentives for
personal votes as opposed to party votes, resulting in clientelism triumphing over party ideology.
12 Evidence of second-order but not first-order autocorrelation would reject the model (Arellano and Bond,
1991). In the three models, state, national and total grants, the null hypothesis of ‘no first-and second-order
autocorrelation’ in the differenced residuals can be rejected for first-order autocorrelation [z ¼ 73.29 (Pr:
0.0002) and z ¼ 71.49 (Pr: 0.013)] but not for second-order autocorrelation [z ¼ 70.03 (Pr: 0.97) and
z ¼ 71.73 (Pr: 0.10)].
13 See Halvorsen and Palmquist (1980) and Kennedy (1981) on interpreting dummy variables in models with a
log-transformed dependent variable.
14 It is important to recognize that the role of partisan alignment may vary depending on the structure of the
party system (multi vs. two-party system).
15 The author thanks to an anonymous review for pointing out this research extension.
16 Although illegal armed groups can be seen as an extreme case, in Latin American countries other stressors
can undermine government actions and performance, that is the case of gang groups (El Salvador), drug
cartels (Mexico and Colombia), violent shantytowns (Brazilian favelas), or hired killers or hitman
(Guatemala), to mention few. Other stressful contexts might be natural disasters, domestic crisis, and drastic
changes in population size, population diversity, economic conditions, uncertainty, etc.
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Do Politics or Mayors Demographics Matter For Municipal Revenue Expansion

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Do Politics or Mayors' Demographics Matter for

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Vol. 14 Issue 8 2012 1061–1086

To address ever-increasing public needs, governments continuously seek to expand

REVENUE EXPANSION AS GOVERNMENTAL STRATEGY

DO MANAGERS INFLUENCE REVENUE STRATEGIES?

Managers’ demographics and revenue strategy

inexperience, resulting in declining and/or unpredictable performance (Kearney et al.,

H1: Younger managers tend to be more successful in expanding organizational revenue.

Organizational context: The moderating factor

H5: The influence of a manager’s demographics on revenue expansion is negatively moderated by a

IS THERE POLITICS IN PURSUING REVENUE EXPANSION?

As mentioned earlier, much of the existing literature addressing the determinants of

H6: Partisan alignment positively influences revenue expansion.

CASE SELECTION: COLOMBIAN MUNICIPALITIES

This research tests the theoretical propositions in thirty-nine Colombian local

of information and/or perceptions of few chances of succeeding, which makes this

VARIABLE DEFINITION AND OPERATIONALIZATION

Table 1: Descriptive statistics.

Variables Mean SD Minimum Maximum

Note: *Number of people displaced by illegal armed groups.

It is a continuous variable. For some, I collected the information from personal

Level of educational achievement

Most of the Latin American Constitutions require no level of education to be a mayoral

To avoid misattributing municipality effects to mayors’ demographic characteristics and

MODEL AND VARIABLE DEFINITION

Lag of state grants (lg) 70.03 (0.09)

Note: ***p 5 0.001; **p 5 0.05. *p 5 0.10 (one-tailed test).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

This study explores whether politics or mayors’ demographic characteristics influence

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Note: p 5 0.001; p 5 0.05. p 5 0.10 (one-tailed test).