Crossing Party Lines: The Effects of Information on Redistributive Politics

Katherine Casey

American Economic Review, 2015, vol. 105, issue 8, 2410-48

Abstract: Many lament that weak accountability and poor governance impede economic development in Africa. Politicians rely on ethnic allegiances that deliver the vote irrespective of performance, dampening electoral incentives. Giving voters information about candidate competence counters ethnic loyalty and strengthens accountability. I extend a canonical electoral model to show how information provision flows through voter behavior and ultimately impacts the distribution of political spending. I test the theory on data from Sierra Leone using decentralization and differential radio coverage to identify information's effects. Estimates suggest that information increases voting across ethnic-party lines and induces a more equitable allocation of campaign spending. (JEL D72, D83, J15, O17, Z13)

JEL-codes: D72 D83 J15 O17 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20130397
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.20130397 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/10508/20130397_data.zip (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/ds/10508/20130397_ds.zip (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/app/10508/20130397_app.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
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:105:y:2015:i:8:p:2410-48

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 ().