Crossing Party Lines: The Effects of Information on Redistributive Politics
American Economic Review · 2015 · Volume 105 · Issue 8
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)
Keywords
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior, Search, Learning, Information and Knowledge, Communication, Belief, Unawareness, Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants, Non-labor Discrimination, Formal and Informal Sectors, Shadow Economy, Institutional Arrangements, Economic Sociology, Economic Anthropology, Social and Economic Stratification
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