We study how partisan alignment across levels of government affects coalition formation and government stability using a regression discontinuity design and a large dataset of Spanish municipal elections. We document a positive effect of alignment on both government formation and stability. Alignment increases the probability that the most-voted party appoints the mayor and decreases the probability that the government is unseated during the term. Aligned parties also obtain sizeable electoral gains in the next elections. We show that these findings are not the consequence of favoritism in the allocation of transfers towards aligned governments.

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1 February 2024

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Journal of Public Economics 2302024

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DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.105017

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272723001998

This Journal article is published under the centre's Urban programme.