The Role of Local Officials in New Democracies: Evidence from Indonesia

Monica Martinez-Bravo

American Economic Review, 2014, vol. 104, issue 4, 1244-87

Abstract: This paper shows that the body of appointed officials that a new democracy inherits from the previous regime is a key determinant of the extent of electoral fraud and clientelistic spending in new democracies. I develop a model that predicts that appointed officials have stronger incentives to influence voters during national level elections because of their career concerns. I test the implications of the model using data from Indonesia's transition to democracy. Both the pattern of alignment of electoral results between village and district levels and the pattern of subsequent turnover of appointed village heads corroborate the predictions of the model.

JEL-codes: D72 H77 H83 O17 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.4.1244
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.104.4.1244 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/app/10404/20111027_app.pdf (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/10404/20111027_data.zip (application/zip)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/ds/10404/20111027_ds.zip (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Role of Local Officials in New Democracies: Evidence from Indonesia (2013)
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:aea:aecrev:v:104:y:2014:i:4:p:1244-87

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().