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Chasing votes with the public budget

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  • Tribin, Ana

Abstract

This paper examines the distribution of public resources by an incumbent seeking re-election. I present a model to explain the behavior of an incumbent redistributing public goods and cash transfers. According to the model, politicians use the government budget as a portfolio for electoral investment and diversify expenditure in order to target different groups of voters at the same time. I construct a unique data set of the promises made by the president of Colombia from 2002 to 2010 to municipalities throughout the country's various regions. The empirical results show some evidence that promises of cash transfers targeted swing voters, promises of public goods simultaneously targeted both core and swing municipalities, while opposition municipalities received few promises of cash transfers and public goods, which is consistent with the prediction of the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Tribin, Ana, 2020. "Chasing votes with the public budget," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:63:y:2020:i:c:s0176268020300239
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2020.101875
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    3. Gelvez, Juan David, 2024. "Does Crime Matter? The Politics of Crime Prevention in Colombia," OSF Preprints znyq5, Center for Open Science.
    4. Ali, Amin Masud & Savoia, Antonio, 2023. "Decentralisation or patronage: What determines government's allocation of development spending in a unitary country? Evidence from Bangladesh," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Distribution; Elections; Public goods; Cash transfers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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