Campaign Connections

Samuel Bazzi () and Claudio Labanca
Additional contact information
Samuel Bazzi: University of California, San Diego

No 16166, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper explores the labor market returns to working on a victorious political campaign. Using unique administrative data from Brazil, we track the earnings and employment of campaign workers before and after close elections spanning nearly 20 years. We identify sizable returns to working for a winning campaign, especially in areas with a large informal sector and for workers connected to newly elected challengers. The returns are concentrated in the public sector, where connected hires are relatively more qualified. Our results suggest a potential upside to patronage as campaign connections create new pathways to public administration for young, high-ability workers.

Keywords: electoral campaigns; labor markets; patronage; political connections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 J45 J46 O17 P00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2023-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-lam, nep-mfd and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16166.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Campaign Connections (2023)
Working Paper: Campaign Connections (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16166

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().