Vote buying and campaign promises |
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| Institution: | 1. Institutions for Development Department, Inter-American Development Bank, 1300 New York Ave NW, Washington, DC 20577, USA;2. Research Department, Inter-American Development Bank, 1300 New York Ave NW, Washington, DC 20577, USA;1. IÉSEG School of Management (LEM-CNRS 9221), France;2. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong;1. Bank of Italy, Structural Economic Analysis Directorate, Via Nazionale 91, 00184 Roma, Italy;2. Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy;1. Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China;2. Department of Economics, Western University (UWO), Ontario, Canada;3. Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Waterloo, Ontario, Canada;4. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA;1. Department of Economics, Columbia University, 420 West 118th Street, 1022 International Affairs Building, New York, NY 10027, USA;2. Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Avenue, 4128 Sproul Hall, Riverside, CA 92521, USA;1. Department of Economics, Wesleyan University, Middletown CT 06457 USA;2. Wesleyan University USA;1. China Centre for Economic Studies, Fudan University, China;2. Paris School of Economics (University of Paris 1) and CEPII, France;3. Business School of Xiangtan University, China |
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| Abstract: | What explains the wide variation across countries in the use of vote buying and policy promises during election campaigns? We address this question, and account for a number of stylized facts and apparent anomalies regarding vote buying, using a model in which parties cannot fully commit to campaign promises. We find that high vote buying is associated with frequent reneging on campaign promises, strong electoral competition, and high policy rents. Frequent reneging and low party competence reduce campaign promises. If vote buying can be financed out of public resources, incumbents buy more votes and enjoy an electoral advantage, but they also promise more public goods. Vote buying has distributional consequences: voters targeted with vote buying pre-election may receive no government benefits post-election. The results point to obstacles to the democratic transition from clientelist to programmatic forms of electoral competition: parties may not benefit electorally from institutions that increase commitment. |
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