Business as usual: Politicians with business experience, government finances, and policy outcomes

Are government finances and policy outcomes different under politicians with business experience? We study California city councils and implement a regression discontinuity strategy to provide causal evidence on this issue. Ultimately, we find no evidence that the election of a candidate with business experience impacts city expenditures, revenues, unemployment rates, and other outcomes. Future vote shares for candidates with business experience are also unaffected, which suggests that these politicians are not having an impact that is observed to voters but unobserved in our data.