Vote-Buying and Reciprocity

Finan, Frederico; Schechter, Laura

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1330137

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Vote-Buying and Reciprocity

25 Pages Posted: 22 Jan 2009 Last revised: 3 Sep 2011

See all articles by Frederico Finan

Frederico Finan

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Laura Schechter

University of Wisconsin at Madison - Agricultural and Applied Economics; University of Wisconsin at Madison - Economics

There are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: September 1, 2011

Abstract

While vote-buying is common, little is known about how politicians determine who to target. We argue that vote-buying can be sustained by an internalized norm of reciprocity. Receiving money engenders feelings of obligation. Combining survey data on vote-buying with an experiment-based measure of reciprocity, we show that politicians target reciprocal individuals. Overall, our ndings highlight the importance of social preferences in determining political behavior.

Keywords: vote-buying, reciprocity, paraguay, experiment, social preference, elections, corruption

JEL Classification: C93, D64, D72, K42, O17

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Finan, Frederico and Schechter, Laura, Vote-Buying and Reciprocity (September 1, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1330137 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1330137