 Votes and regional economic growth: evidence from TurkeyLSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library Abstract: In countries where governments’ disproportionate power over the bureaucracy is coupled with a strong political polarization, can votes for the national incumbent party “buy” preferential policy treatment and faster regional economic growth? The article tests such question on Turkey’s 81 provinces over 2004–12. Results uncover a link between votes and faster regional growth, as well as a small influence of preferential allocations in explaining it. Yet, after addressing potential endogeneity, economic performance is almost entirely explained by standard drivers, primarily human capital endowment. Results suggest that the impact of electorally motivated distributive politics on regions’ economic performance is extremely limited. Keywords: distributive politics; votes; political cleavages; regional economic growth; Middle-East; Turkey (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published in World Development, 4, November, 2015, 78, pp. 477-495. ISSN: 0305-750X Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:65809 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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