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This study examines the impact of municipal splits on voter engagement in Brazil, analyzing data from 1988 to 2020 across 621 affected areas. Our study reveals an increase in political engagement after the implementation of administrative divisions in both municipal and general elections. This effect is further amplified in highly fragmented areas impacted by this territorial reform.

This study examines Brazil’s fiscal response to extreme weather events, analyzing relief funding and risk mitigation policies. Using SPEI data from 1997 to 2019, we identify floods and droughts across 5,474 municipalities and apply a difference-in-differences with matching approach. Our findings show that droughts do not affect intergovernmental transfers, creating financial pressure, while floods increase grants, improving fiscal balances but failing to boost flood mitigation spending, revealing a moral hazard in reliance on higher-level government resources.

The PMAT program, managed by BNDES, provides subsidized loans to improve municipal tax administration and boost own-source revenue while reducing reliance on transfers. This study assesses its impact using a difference-in-differences approach with multiple treatment periods, uniquely including municipalities that applied but did not receive funds as a control group. Contrary to previous findings, the results suggest the program did not significantly increase tax revenues, indicating that the financed modernization efforts were insufficient for meaningful revenue growth.