Political Economy
Lightning Round SessionFriday, Jan. 3, 2025 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (PST)
- Chair: Ranganath Murthy, Western New England University
Do Tuition Subsidies Raise Political Participation?
Abstract
Civic externalities motivate public education expenditures, but estimates of the civic returns to large-scale education subsidies are scarce. We use 16 million financial aid applications and a regression discontinuity (RD) design to estimate how the United States' largest tuition-free college program impacts political participation. We find that each of the 2.6 million awards increased a student's voter turnout rate by 4 to 12 percentage points in 2020, raising total voter turnout by 1 percentage point and Biden's margin of victory by 0.5 percentage points in the awarding state. We calculate that 1 out of every 66 voters cast a ballot because of the tuition subsidy and find evidence consistent with peer socialization, among other mechanisms. The results are externally validated with another RD design using 2.5 million students local to a notch in the generosity of another financial aid program. Our findings demonstrate that the civic externalities of education spending can be large enough to sway elections.Gender and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Crisis Response
Abstract
This paper provides new evidence on why men and women leaders make different choices. We first use a simple political agency model to illustrate how voters' gender bias can lead reelection-seeking female politicians to undertake different policies. We then test the model's predictions by exploring leaders’ responses to COVID-19. Assuming that voters expect policies to be less effective if decided by women, the model predicts that female politicians undertake less containment effort than male politicians when voters perceive the threat as low, while the opposite is true when voters perceive it as serious. Exploiting Brazilian close elections, we find that, early in the pandemic, female mayors were less likely to close non-essential businesses and female-led municipalities experienced more deaths per capita, while the reverse was true later on, once the health consequences materialized. These results are exclusively driven by mayors facing reelection and stronger in municipalities with greater gender discrimination.Globalization, Income Inequality and Political Realignment: The Transition from a Two-Party to a Multi-Party Electoral System in Costa Rica
Abstract
This study explores the proliferation of electoral parties in democracies globally, using the Costa Rican context as a laboratory. It seeks to understand whether the transformed political landscape in Costa Rica since 2002, marked by a shift from a two-party to a multi-party system, can be attributed to the growing disparities in income and increasing exposure to globalization. This research contributes significantly to the existing literature on globalization and its impact on electoral outcomes, particularly within the context of a developing nation with a solid democratic tradition. It uniquely combines two sets of administrative data at the individual level: electoral registries and social security employer-employee records. The study reveals a positive correlation between income and voter turnout. The primary findings related to income shocks are stable to the inclusion of immigration data. Notably, the analysis demonstrates that immigration decreases voter turnout across most specifications. However, when applying an IV strategy at the individual level, the presence of more immigrant colleagues appears to positively influence the voting behaviour of local workers, suggesting a potential buffer effect. Furthermore, our analysis at the polling station level reveals that areas with positive income gains tend to exhibit more stable voting preferences and declining support for traditional parties. Moreover, exposure to immigration appears to foster electoral volatility and, paradoxically, greater support for traditional parties, possibly as a refuge for discontented voters amidst evolving political landscapes.Populism and Narratives of Social Mobility
Abstract
Populism, characterized by a rhetoric of "the people'' versus "the elite'', is on the rise in Western democracies. This paper examines how local social mobility environments shape populist attitudes and voting behavior. Linking novel survey data from the US with electoral outcomes and social mobility measures at the county-level, I find that higher local mobility is associated with lower support for populist attitudes and Trump votes. To explore the role of social mobility beliefs, I collect over 3,450 respondent-generated narratives of upward mobility and classify them as "luck-based" or "effort-based" using a large language model. To identify the causal effect of lucky-ascent beliefs on populism, I conduct a survey experiment in which 2,000 respondents are randomly exposed to luck-based ascent narratives. Exposure raises populist attitudes by increasing beliefs in the role of luck, particularly among men, individuals without a college degree, and those without upward mobility experience.Power Consolidation in Groups
Abstract
I develop a model of how a society’s distribution of political power and economic resources evolves over time. Multiple lineages of players compete by accumulating power, which is modeled as an asset that increases the probability of winning conflicts over resources. This model provides sharp equilibrium predictions for how a society’s distribution of power evolves and whether it approaches a dictatorial, oligarchic, or inclusive regime in the long run. My main result shows that power and resources inevitably fall into the hands of a few when political competition is left unchecked in large societies. In addition to addressing a longstanding empirical puzzle, this result also suggests that persistently rising inequality observed in large countries such as the United States will not self‐correct; in light of this, I also provide insights into the policy interventions that can be used to counteract rising inequality in large societies.Recovering Voice: Is Out-of-District Giving a Substitute for Local Political Participation?
Abstract
A growing share of Americans live in electorally lopsided congressional districts, potentially depressing their political participation. Unlike with voting, there are no place-based restrictions on giving, raising the question of whether individuals disengaged by lopsided home districts find voice through greater non-local giving. I explore this using the post-2010 redistricting that exogenously reassigned individuals to more, or less, competitive districts. When an individual’s district becomes less competitive, she donates less to her district’s candidates and more to out-of-district candidates. Givers regard local and non-local giving as substitutes: a dollar reduction in within-district giving increases out-of-district giving by $0.48.Refugee Urban Shelters and Locals' Electoral Outcomes: Evidence from the Venezuelan Refugee Crisis in Northern Brazil
Abstract
Refugee camps and shelters in rural/secluded areas (often combined with restrictions on rights) remain the predominant form of aid provided by developing host countries, even though 78% of refugees worldwide reside in urban areas. Since 2014, one million Venezuelans have entered Brazil, and the border between the two countries in Roraima (the smallest Brazilian state in terms of GDP and population) has become the main entry point of an unprecedented migration flow. Diverging from this "standard" reception strategy, the Brazilian government granted comprehensive rights to Venezuelans and opened 11 urban refugee shelters in different neighborhoods of Roraima's capital. Leveraging the quasi-random placement of these shelters, I investigate how this "refined" reception policy affected locals' political choices. According to the results, Brazilians living closer to shelters increased their support for far-right presidential and gubernatorial candidates, at the expense of the incumbent governor involved in the shelter policy efforts. Therefore, urban shelters triggered an accountability effect combined with a shift towards far-right populist candidates. The results are mainly driven by shelters hosting Venezuelan indigenous people (an especially vulnerable and culturally distinct subgroup of the refugee population). This potentially reveals that cultural differences and competition for government resources and services can play an important role. Finally, the estimated results were small in magnitude and the shelters' absence wouldn't change the elected politicians' composition.Vetting for Virtue: Democracy’s Challenge in Excluding Criminals from Office
Abstract
This paper assesses the effectiveness of democratic systems in preventing individuals with criminal backgrounds from holding political office. Unlike many countries, Norway has no legal restrictions against felons running for office. We analyze local election candidates from 2003 to 2019, paired with administrative records of criminal offenses. We demonstrate that individuals with criminal records are systematically penalized at every stage of their political careers. Candidates are less likely to have criminal records than the general population, with elected officials less likely to have criminal backgrounds than their unelected peers, and mayors being the most lawful. Through a series of counterfactual exercises, we show that the most significant reduction in criminal involvement occurs at the nomination stage, especially within established local party organizations.JEL Classifications
- P1 - Capitalist Economies