Punishing Mayors Who Fail the Test : How Do Voters Respond to Information About Educational Outcomes?

This paper explores the electoral effects of providing information on the educational outcomes of municipal schools when the mayor is running for reelection. We designed and implemented an experiment in Chile whereby we sent 128,033 letters to voters in 400 randomly selected polling stations. The letters included information on past test scores for local public schools (levels and changes), and either average or maximum outcomes for comparable municipalities. We find that information on educational outcomes affects turnout, which translates almost one to one into votes for the incumbent mayor. Voters respond to educational results in levels and to letters that have average results as a benchmark. The results are concentrated in polling stations with bad educational outcomes, which reduce turnout and thus votes for the incumbent, especially if such outcomes come as news to voters. The results appear to be stronger in contexts where information is scarcer