O INSPER E ESTE REPOSITÓRIO NÃO DETÊM OS DIREITOS DE USO E REPRODUÇÃO DOS CONTEÚDOS AQUI REGISTRADOS. É RESPONSABILIDADE DO USUÁRIO VERIFICAR OS USOS PERMITIDOS NA FONTE ORIGINAL, RESPEITANDO-SE OS DIREITOS DE AUTOR OU EDITOR.Portella, Alysson LorenzonTebaldi, Raquel2024-02-262024-02-262022https://repositorio.insper.edu.br/handle/11224/6443The objective of this paper is to investigate whether higher political competition induces the expansion of public early childhood education and care (ECEC) services using Brazil as a case study. Public ECEC services are provided mainly by Brazilian municipalities and although enrolment for children aged 0 to 3 is not mandatory, it has increased continuously in the last two decades, with large heterogeneity across municipalities. In addition, electoral rules in Brazil establishes a dual-ballot system only for municipalities with more than 200,000 registered voters. This provides an exogenous variation in political competition that enables us to evaluate its impact on ECEC provision through a regression discontinuity design. We find that average estimated municipal crèche net enrolment rates are around 3 percentage points larger in municipalities with the dual-ballot. ECEC expenditure levels are also higher in these municipalities.35 p.DigitalInglêsChildcareDaycarePolitical CompetitionElectoral Rulesworking paper