IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/macdyn/v15y2011i05p656-680_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Vote-Buying And Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Gersbach, Hans
  • Mühe, Felix

Abstract

Vote-buying is widely used by parties in developing countries to influence the outcome of elections. We examine the impact of vote-buying on growth. We consider a model with a poverty trap where redistribution can promote growth. We show that vote-buying contributes to the persistence of poverty as taxed wealthy people buy votes from poor people. We then show that there exists a democratic constitution that breaks vote-buying and promotes growth. Such a constitution involves rotating agenda setting, a taxpayer-protection rule, and repeated voting. The latter rule makes vote-buying prohibitively costly.

Suggested Citation

  • Gersbach, Hans & Mühe, Felix, 2011. "Vote-Buying And Growth," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(5), pages 656-680, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:15:y:2011:i:05:p:656-680_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1365100510000246/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Docquier, Frederic & Tarbalouti, Essaid, 2001. "Bribing Votes: A New Explanation to the "Inequality-Redistribution" Puzzle in LDCs," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 108(3-4), pages 259-272, September.
    2. Baron, David P. & Ferejohn, John A., 1989. "Bargaining in Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1181-1206, December.
    3. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    4. Philippe Aghion & Alberto Alesina & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Endogenous Political Institutions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 565-611.
    5. Azariadis, Costas, 1996. "The Economics of Poverty Traps: Part One: Complete Markets," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 449-496, December.
    6. Eddie Dekel & Matthew O. Jackson & Asher Wolinsky, 2008. "Vote Buying: General Elections," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(2), pages 351-380, April.
    7. Philippe Aghion & Patrick Bolton, 2003. "Incomplete Social Contracts," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(1), pages 38-67, March.
    8. Dennis Mueller & Robert Tollison & Thomas Willett, 1972. "Representative democracy via random selection," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 57-68, March.
    9. Hans Gersbach, 2004. "Dividing resources by flexible majority rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 23(2), pages 295-308, October.
    10. Barro, Robert J, 2000. "Inequality and Growth in a Panel of Countries," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 5-32, March.
    11. Groseclose, Tim & Snyder, James M., 1996. "Buying Supermajorities," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(2), pages 303-315, June.
    12. Saqib Jafarey & Sajal Lahiri, 2001. "Child Labour," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 2(1), pages 69-93, January.
    13. Gersbach, Hans & Siemers, Lars, 2005. "Can Democracy Educate a Society?," IZA Discussion Papers 1693, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cendales, Andrés & Mora, Jhon & Arroyo, Santiago, 2015. "Sobre las democracias locales en el Pacífico colombiano y su incidencia en la política pública de agua potable en el periodo 2008-2011," Revista Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, CIE, issue 83, pages 161-192, February.
    2. Chyi-Lu Jang & Chun-Ping Chang, 2016. "Vote Buying and Victory of Election: The Case of Taiwan," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2016(5), pages 591-606.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hans Gersbach & Lars-H. Siemers, 2014. "Can democracy induce development? A constitutional perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 177-196, April.
    2. Gersbach, Hans & Siemers, Lars, 2005. "Can Democracy Educate a Society?," IZA Discussion Papers 1693, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Emmanuelle Auriol & Robert Gary-Bobo, 2012. "On the optimal number of representatives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 419-445, December.
    4. Toke Aidt & Francesco Giovannoni, 2011. "Critical decisions and constitutional rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(2), pages 219-268, July.
    5. Alessandro Riboni, 2013. "Ideology and endogenous constitutions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(3), pages 885-913, April.
    6. Hans Gersbach & Volker Hahn & Stephan Imhof, 2013. "Tax rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(1), pages 19-42, June.
    7. Martin Ravallion, 2012. "Why Don't We See Poverty Convergence?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 504-523, February.
    8. Marina Bannikova & Artyom Jelnov & Pavel Jelnov, 2021. "The Number of Parties and Decision-Making in Legislatures," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-10, October.
    9. Vincenzo Lombardo, 2008. "Income distribution and Growth: A Critical Survey," Working Papers 11_2008, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    10. Ann-Sofie Isaksson, 2011. "Social divisions and institutions: assessing institutional parameter variation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 331-357, June.
    11. Harstad, Bård, 2010. "Strategic delegation and voting rules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 102-113, February.
    12. Iaryczower, Matias & Oliveros, Santiago, 2016. "Power brokers: Middlemen in legislative bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 209-236.
    13. Jan Zápal, 2017. "Crafting consensus," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 169-200, October.
    14. David P Baron, 2019. "Lobbying dynamics," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(3), pages 403-452, July.
    15. Raphael Godefroy & Nicolas Klein, 2018. "Parliament Shapes And Sizes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 2212-2233, October.
    16. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    17. Grossmann, Volker, 2008. "Risky human capital investment, income distribution, and macroeconomic dynamics," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 19-42, March.
    18. Pierre‐Richard Agénor, 2004. "Macroeconomic Adjustment and the Poor: Analytical Issues and Cross‐Country Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 351-408, July.
    19. Arief Anshory Yusuf, 2005. "A Survey on Growth and Inequality: Does Improved Inequality Data Have Anything to Say?," Working Papers in Economics and Development Studies (WoPEDS) 200501, Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University, revised Oct 2005.
    20. Ghosh, sudeshna, 2017. "Education Attainment Forecasting and Economic Inequality United States," MPRA Paper 89712, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:15:y:2011:i:05:p:656-680_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/mdy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.