Vote-Buying and Reciprocity

23 Pages Posted: 18 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

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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 findings highlight the importance of social preferences in determining political behavior.

Keywords: vote-buying, reciprocity, redistributive politics, voting, social preferences

JEL Classification: H0

Suggested Citation

Finan, Frederico and Schechter, Laura, Vote-Buying and Reciprocity. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5965, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1929665 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1929665

Frederico Finan (Contact Author)

University of California, Berkeley - Department of Economics ( email )

310 Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Laura Schechter

University of Wisconsin at Madison - Agricultural and Applied Economics ( email )

427 Lorch St.
Madison, WI 53706-1503
United States

HOME PAGE: http://aae.wisc.edu/lschechter

University of Wisconsin at Madison - Economics ( email )

William H. Sewell Social Science Building
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1393
United States

HOME PAGE: http://aae.wisc.edu/lschechter

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