Term Length and Political Performance Ernesto Dal Bó Martín A. Rossi June 10, 2010 Abstract We evaluate the e¤ects of a fundamental lever of constitutional design: the dura- tion of o¢ ce terms. We present a simple model grounded in interviews with legislators highlighting opposing forces. We exploit two natural experiments in the Argentine congress (where term lengths were assigned randomly) to ascertain which forces are empirically dominant. Results for an index as well as separate measures of legisla- tive performance show that longer terms enhance performance. In addition, shorter terms appear to worsen performance not due to campaign distractions but due to an investment logic: when returns to e¤ort are not immediate, longer terms yield a higher chance of capturing those returns. Job stability may dilute accountability (as in classic theories of electoral discipline–Barro 1973, Ferejohn 1986) but when e¤ort embodies an investment some stability may strengthen incentives. JEL Classi…cation: H1 Keywords: Term length, political incentives, legislatures. Ernesto Dal Bó, University of California at Berkeley and NBER,
[email protected]; Martín A. Rossi, Universidad de San Andrés,
[email protected]. Rossi acknowledges …nancial support through grant PICT 2007-787. We thank Pedro Dal Bó, Erik Eyster, Claudio Ferraz, Je¤ry Frieden, Sebastián Galiani, Martín Gonzalez-Eiras, Neil Malhotra, Ted Miguel, Ernesto Schargrodsky, Ken Shepsle, Mariano Tommasi, and participants at various seminars and conferences for valuable comments and suggestions. We are deeply grateful to legislators Patricia Bullrich, Héctor Maya, Mario Negri, Aldo Neri, Jesús Rodríguez, and Jorge Young who provided expert advice on the functioning of the Argentine Congress.