Financial Accounting Measures and Mayoral Elections

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between electoral outcomes and accounting measures at the city level. We use a larger sample, more recent time horizon, and different methodology to provide additional support for the relevance of accounting and financial measures for explaining mayoral election outcomes. Our evidence suggests that Ingram and Copeland (1981) results for mayor-council cities are generalizable to a different time period and different sample of cities, including those with a council-manager form of government. Our results, contrary to our expectations based on previous studies such as Baber (1993), also indicate that financial accounting measures are more relevant for cities characterized by low political competition than for those with high political competition