IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cge/wacage/316.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Political Economy of Program Enforcement: Evidence from Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Brollo, Fernanda

    (University of Warwick)

  • Kaufmann, Katja Maria

    (Mannheim University)

  • Ferrara, Eliana La

    (Bocconi University)

Abstract

Do politicians manipulate the enforcement of conditional welfare programs to in- fluence electoral outcomes? We study the Bolsa Familia Program (BFP) in Brazil, which provides a monthly stipend to poor families conditional on school attendance. Repeated failure to comply with this requirement results in increasing penalties. First, we exploit random variation in the timing when beneficiaries learn about penalties for noncompliance around the 2008 municipal elections. We find that the vote share of candidates aligned with the President is lower in zip codes where more beneficiaries received penalties shortly before (as opposed to shortly after) the elections. Second, we show that politicians strategically manipulate enforcement. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find weaker enforcement before elections in municipalities where mayors from the presidential coalition can run for reelection. Finally, we provide evidence that manipulation occurs through misreporting school attendance, particularly in municipalities with a higher fraction of students in schools with politically connected principals.

Suggested Citation

  • Brollo, Fernanda & Kaufmann, Katja Maria & Ferrara, Eliana La, 2017. "The Political Economy of Program Enforcement: Evidence from Brazil," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 316, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:316
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/316-2017_brollo.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ana L. De La O, 2013. "Do Conditional Cash Transfers Affect Electoral Behavior? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Mexico," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(1), pages 1-14, January.
    2. Caughey, Devin & Sekhon, Jasjeet S., 2011. "Elections and the Regression Discontinuity Design: Lessons from Close U.S. House Races, 1942–2008," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(4), pages 385-408.
    3. Marco Manacorda & Edward Miguel & Andrea Vigorito, 2011. "Government Transfers and Political Support," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 1-28, July.
    4. Toke S. Aidt & Julia Shvets, 2012. "Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 1-29, August.
    5. Levitt, Steven D & Snyder, James M, Jr, 1997. "The Impact of Federal Spending on House Election Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 30-53, February.
    6. de Janvry, Alain & Finan, Frederico & Sadoulet, Elisabeth & Vakis, Renos, 2006. "Can conditional cash transfer programs serve as safety nets in keeping children at school and from working when exposed to shocks?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 349-373, April.
    7. Healy, Andrew & Malhotra, Neil, 2010. "Random Events, Economic Losses, and Retrospective Voting: Implications for Democratic Competence," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 5(2), pages 193-208, August.
    8. Andrew C. Eggers & Anthony Fowler & Jens Hainmueller & Andrew B. Hall & James M. Snyder, 2015. "On the Validity of the Regression Discontinuity Design for Estimating Electoral Effects: New Evidence from Over 40,000 Close Races," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(1), pages 259-274, January.
    9. David S. Lee & Enrico Moretti & Matthew J. Butler, 2004. "Do Voters Affect or Elect Policies? Evidence from the U. S. House," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 807-859.
    10. Sarah Baird & Craig McIntosh & Berk Özler, 2011. "Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1709-1753.
    11. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    12. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2011. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1274-1311, June.
    13. Mitra Akhtari & Diana Moreira & Laura Trucco, 2022. "Political Turnover, Bureaucratic Turnover, and the Quality of Public Services," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(2), pages 442-493, February.
    14. Brollo, Fernanda & Nannicini, Tommaso, 2012. "Tying Your Enemy's Hands in Close Races: The Politics of Federal Transfers in Brazil," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(4), pages 742-761, November.
    15. Labonne, Julien, 2016. "Local political business cycles: Evidence from Philippine municipalities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 56-62.
    16. Labonne, Julien, 2013. "The local electoral impacts of conditional cash transfers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 73-88.
    17. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 1995. "Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 769-798.
    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. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Paul J. Gertler & Marco Gonzalez-Navarro & Simeon Nichter, 2022. "Vulnerability and Clientelism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(11), pages 3627-3659, November.
    2. Duchoslav, Jan & Kenamu, Edwin & Thunde, Jack, 2023. "Targeting hunger or votes? The political economy of humanitarian transfers in Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    3. Gerard,François & Naritomi,Joana & Silva,Joana C. G., 2021. "Cash Transfers and Formal Labor Markets : Evidence from Brazil : Cash Transfers and the Local Economy: Evidence from Brazil," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9778, The World Bank.
    4. Matteo Gamalerio, 2018. "Not Welcome Anymore: The Effect of Electoral Incentives on the Reception of Refugees," CESifo Working Paper Series 7212, CESifo.
    5. Pranab Bardhan & Sandip Mitra & Dilip Mookherjee & Anusha Nath, 2020. "How Do Voters Respond to Welfare vis-à-vis Public Good Programs? An Empirical Test for Clientelism," Staff Report 605, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

    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. Gouvêa, Raphael & Girardi, Daniele, 2021. "Partisanship and local fiscal policy: Evidence from Brazilian cities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    2. Stephan Schneider & Sven Kunze, 2021. "Disastrous Discretion: Ambiguous Decision Situations Foster Political Favoritism," KOF Working papers 21-491, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    3. Brollo, Fernanda & Troiano, Ugo, 2016. "What happens when a woman wins an election? Evidence from close races in Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 28-45.
    4. Ganslmeier, Michael, 2023. "Are Campaign Promises Effective?," EconStor Preprints 274069, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    5. Fernando Aragón & Ricardo Pique, 2020. "Better the devil you know? Reelected politicians and policy outcomes under no term limits," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 1-16, January.
    6. Pranab Bardhan & Sandip Mitra & Dilip Mookherjee & Anusha Nath, 2020. "How Do Voters Respond to Welfare vis-à-vis Public Good Programs? An Empirical Test for Clientelism," Staff Report 605, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    7. Haseeb, Muhammad & Vyborny, Kate, 2022. "Data, discretion and institutional capacity: Evidence from cash transfers in Pakistan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    8. Aaron A. Elrod & Serkan Karadas & Katherine C. Theyson, 2019. "The effect of gubernatorial political parties on monitoring and enforcement of federal environmental regulation: evidence from the Clean Water Act," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 21(2), pages 171-202, April.
    9. Andrea De Meo & Lorenzo Ferrari, 2018. "Political Turnover and the Performance of Local Public Enterprises," CEIS Research Paper 438, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 08 Aug 2018.
    10. Keita, Sekou & Mandon, Pierre, 2018. "Give a fish or teach fishing? Partisan affiliation of U.S. governors and the poverty status of immigrants," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 65-96.
    11. Christian Dippel, 2019. "Political Parties Do Matter in U.S. Cities ... For Their Unfunded Pensions," NBER Working Papers 25601, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Pranab Bardhan & Sandip Mitra & Dilip Mookherjee & Anusha Nath, 2018. "Resource Transfers to Local Governments: Political Manipulation and Household Responses in West Bengal," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-319, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    13. Benjamin Marx & Vincent Pons & Vincent Rollet, 2022. "Electoral Turnovers," NBER Working Papers 29766, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Sonia Bhalotra & Brian Min & Yogesh Uppal, 2024. "Women legislators and economic performance," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 151-214, June.
    15. Leandro De Magalhaes & Isabel Spirgel-Sinclair, 2021. "Could Regression Discontinuity estimates of incumbency e ects help monitor parliamentary elections? Evidence from Malawi," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 21/741, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    16. Lehne, Jonathan & Shapiro, Jacob N. & Vanden Eynde, Oliver, 2018. "Building connections: Political corruption and road construction in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 62-78.
    17. Alain de Janvry & Frederico Finan & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2012. "Local Electoral Incentives and Decentralized Program Performance," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 672-685, August.
    18. Louis-Philippe Beland & Sara Oloomi, 2017. "Party Affiliation And Public Spending: Evidence From U.S. Governors," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(2), pages 982-995, April.
    19. Beland, Louis-Philippe & Boucher, Vincent, 2015. "Polluting politics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 176-181.
    20. Schelker, Mark, 2018. "Lame ducks and divided government: How voters control the unaccountable," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 131-144.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    JEL Classification:;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cge:wacage:316. 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: Jane Snape (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    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.