The 2019 local election in Hungary accelerated the trend of centralization, marked by a simultaneous reduction in available local funds and an increase in discretionary transfers to local governments. This paper, utilizing a dataset encompassing all over 3000 municipalities from 2015 to 2020, employs fixed-effect estimations and a regression discontinuity design to explore how election outcomes influenced central decisions on intergovernmental transfers. Generally, larger municipalities are more susceptible to political influence, particularly in the allocation of discretionary grants, whereas smaller settlements appear less affected by political shifts. Changes in political alignment triggered a rewarding policy for municipalities that remained or converted to aligned status, resulting in an additional 86.4% and 65.2% of discretionary funds, respectively, relative to those converting to or remaining unaligned. Our research establishes that political influence in intergovernmental transfers has intensified since 2019, offering valuable insights for the upcoming 2024 election.

2019年匈牙利地方选举加速了集权化趋势，地方可用资金同时减少，地方政府可自由支配的转移支付增加。本文利用 2015 年至 2020 年涵盖 3000 多个城市的数据集，采用固定效应估计和断点回归设计来探讨选举结果如何影响政府间转移支付的中央决策。一般来说，较大的城市更容易受到政治影响，特别是在可自由支配拨款的分配方面，而较小的定居点似乎受政治变化的影响较小。政治结盟的变化引发了对保持或转变为结盟状态的城市的奖励政策，相对于那些转变为或保持不结盟状态的城市，分别增加了 86.4% 和 65.2% 的可自由支配资金。我们的研究表明，自 2019 年以来，政府间转移支付的政治影响力有所增强，为即将到来的 2024 年选举提供了宝贵的见解。