Vote buying and campaign promises

Philip Keefer and Razvan Vlaicu

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2017, vol. 45, issue 4, 773-792

Abstract: What explains the wide variation across countries in the use of vote buying and policy promises during election campaigns? We address this question, and account for a number of stylized facts and apparent anomalies regarding vote buying, using a model in which parties cannot fully commit to campaign promises. We find that high vote buying is associated with frequent reneging on campaign promises, strong electoral competition, and high policy rents. Frequent reneging and low party competence reduce campaign promises. If vote buying can be financed out of public resources, incumbents buy more votes and enjoy an electoral advantage, but they also promise more public goods. Vote buying has distributional consequences: voters targeted with vote buying pre-election may receive no government benefits post-election. The results point to obstacles to the democratic transition from clientelist to programmatic forms of electoral competition: parties may not benefit electorally from institutions that increase commitment.

Keywords: Vote buying; Campaign promises; Rent seeking; Incumbency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H20 H50 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:45:y:2017:i:4:p:773-792

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2017.07.001

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