It was a success… but most importantly it was fun!!! Max, you provided an enormous public service! 🙏🏼 Thanks for all the work and thought you put into this.

We conclude that the competence of public administrator mayors only matters when they are motivated to use it, i.e. this is an example where incentives are necessary for the effects of political selection to materialize.

Mayors’ background on average has no effect on grant receipts.
Yet, public administrator mayors do attract more grants than outsider mayors when they are ideologically aligned with the council, raising the motivation to apply for grants in the first place.