Do Longer Terms Boost City Responsiveness? A Counterintuitive Look at NYC Elections

This paper examines how elections affect city council responsiveness to residents' service requests.

Measuring Responsiveness: We analyze millions of service requests across US cities, using them as a proxy for constituency responsiveness.

NYC Term Change Experiment: By comparing districts where New York City councilors could now run for three terms versus two, we test if term limits influence responsiveness.

Key Findings

• A DID analysis shows robust evidence that longer terms increase responsiveness in NYC districts previously limited to two terms.
• Even more surprisingly, responsiveness improves most significantly later in an incumbent's tenure when seeking reelection after multiple terms.
• Similar patterns emerge in San Francisco local elections, confirming these trends across different urban contexts.

Why It Matters

These findings challenge conventional assumptions about term limits and democratic accountability:

• Longer electoral cycles may encourage incumbents to serve voters more effectively as they campaign for future reelection.
• Responsiveness doesn't decrease with longer terms; it strengthens over time.
• This creates political cycles in service responsiveness, offering new insights into representative democracy.