Vote-Buying and Reciprocity

Frederico Finan and Laura Schechter

No 5965, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: While vote-buying is common, little is known about how politicians determine who to target. We argue that vote-buying can be sustained by an internalized norm of reciprocity. Receiving money engenders feelings of obligation. Combining survey data on vote-buying with an experiment-based measure of reciprocity, we show that politicians target reciprocal individuals. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of social preferences in determining political behavior.

Keywords: redistributive politics; reciprocity; vote-buying; voting; social preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2011-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published - published in: Econometrica, 2012, 80 (2), 863-881

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Related works:
Journal Article: Vote‐Buying and Reciprocity (2012)
Working Paper: Vote-Buying and Reciprocity (2011)
Working Paper: Vote-Buying and Reciprocity (2009)
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