IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v3y2011i2p196-214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Price of Political Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela's Maisanta

Author

Listed:
  • Chang-Tai Hsieh
  • Edward Miguel
  • Daniel Ortega
  • Francisco Rodriguez

Abstract

In 2004, the Hugo Chávez regime in Venezuela distributed the list of several million voters who had attempted to remove him from office throughout the government bureaucracy, allegedly to identify and punish these voters. We match the list of petition signers distributed by the government to household survey respondents to measure the economic effects of being identified as a Chávez political opponent. We find that voters who were identified as Chávez opponents experienced a 5 percent drop in earnings and a 1.3 percentage point drop in employment rates after the voter list was released. (JEL D72, O17)

Suggested Citation

  • Chang-Tai Hsieh & Edward Miguel & Daniel Ortega & Francisco Rodriguez, 2011. "The Price of Political Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela's Maisanta," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 196-214, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:3:y:2011:i:2:p:196-214
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.3.2.196
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.3.2.196
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2010-0073_data.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Ferguson & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2008. "Betting on Hitler—The Value of Political Connections in Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 101-137.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    3. Alesina, Alberto & Özler, Sule & Roubini, Nouriel & Swagel, Phillip, 1996. "Political Instability and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 189-211, June.
    4. Benabou, Roland, 2005. "Inequality, Technology and the Social Contract," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1595-1638, Elsevier.
    5. Rasmus Lentz & Dale T. Mortensen, 2008. "An Empirical Model of Growth Through Product Innovation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1317-1373, November.
    6. Skaperdas, Stergios, 1992. "Cooperation, Conflict, and Power in the Absence of Property Rights," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 720-739, September.
    7. Robert E. Hall & Paul R. Milgrom, 2008. "The Limited Influence of Unemployment on the Wage Bargain," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1653-1674, September.
    8. Durham, Yvonne & Hirshleifer, Jack & Smith, Vernon L., 2008. "The Paradox of Power," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 127-137, Elsevier.
    9. Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Atif Mian, 2005. "Do Lenders Favor Politically Connected Firms? Rent Provision in an Emerging Financial Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1371-1411.
    10. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September.
    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. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Straub, Stéphane & Flochel, Thomas, 2016. "Public Procurement and Rent-Seeking: The Case of Paraguay," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 395-407.
    2. Gilles Saint‐Paul & Davide Ticchi & Andrea Vindigni, 2016. "A Theory of Political Entrenchment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(593), pages 1238-1263, June.
    3. Maurer, Stephan E., 2018. "Voting Behavior and Public Employment in Nazi Germany," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-39, March.
    4. González, Felipe & Prem, Mounu, 2018. "The value of political capital: Dictatorship collaborators as business elites," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 217-230.
    5. Manuel Funke & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch, 2023. "Populist Leaders and the Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3249-3288, December.
    6. Andrew T Little, 2017. "Are non-competitive elections good for citizens?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 214-242, April.
    7. Mazumder, Debojyoti & Biswas, Rajit, 2018. "Is Nepotism Inevitable Under Search and Matching Friction?," MPRA Paper 89836, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Muhammad Haseeb & Kate Vyborny, 2016. "Imposing institutions: Evidence from cash transfer reform in Pakistan," CSAE Working Paper Series 2016-36, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    9. Archibong, Belinda, 2019. "Explaining divergence in the long-term effects of precolonial centralization on access to public infrastructure services in Nigeria," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 123-140.
    10. Marta Curto-Grau & Alfonso Herranz-Loncán & Albert Solé-Ollé, 2010. "The political economy of infrastructure construction: The Spanish “Parliamentary Roads” (1880-1914)," Working Papers 2010/22, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    11. Brian Knight & Ana Tribin, 2022. "Opposition Media, State Censorship, and Political Accountability: Evidence from Chavez’s Venezuela," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 36(2), pages 455-487.
    12. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2021. "Using Machine Learning for measuring democracy: A practitioners guide and a new updated dataset for 186 countries from 1919 to 2019," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    13. McGuirk,Eoin & Rajaram,Anand & Giugale,Marcelo, 2016. "The political economy of direct dividend transfers in resource-rich countries : a theoretical consideration," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7575, The World Bank.
    14. Martínez, Luis R., 2017. "Transnational insurgents: Evidence from Colombia's FARC at the border with Chávez's Venezuela," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 138-153.
    15. Brian Knight & Ana Tribin, 2019. "The Limits of Propaganda: Evidence from Chavez’s Venezuela," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 567-605.
    16. Dorothy Kronick & Francisco Rodr'iguez, 2023. "Political Conflict and Economic Growth in Post-Independence Venezuela," Papers 2305.14698, arXiv.org.
    17. Eva Meyersson Milgrom, 2010. "The Dispossessed: A Labor-Market Analysis of Extreme Political Violence," Discussion Papers 09-007, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    18. Dorothy Kronick & Francisco Rodríguez, 2023. "Political Conflict and Economic Growth in Post-independence Venezuela," Springer Books, in: Felipe Valencia Caicedo (ed.), Roots of Underdevelopment, pages 317-346, Springer.
    19. Sam Asher & Paul Novosad, 2017. "Politics and Local Economic Growth: Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 229-273, January.
    20. Straub, Stéphane, 2014. "Political Firms, Public Procurement, and the Democratization Process," TSE Working Papers 14-461, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    21. Gonzalez, Naihobe & Oyelere, Ruth Uwaifo, 2011. "Are returns to education on the decline in Venezuela and does Mission Sucre have a role to play?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1348-1369.
    22. Guillermo Rosas & Noel P Johnston & Kirk Hawkins, 2014. "Local public goods as vote-purchasing devices? Persuasion and mobilization in the choice of clientelist payments," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 26(4), pages 573-598, October.
    23. Savu, A., 2021. "Reverse Political Coattails under a Technocratic Government: New Evidence on the National Electoral Benefits of Local Party Incumbency," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2121, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    24. Haseeb, Muhammad & Vyborny, Kate, 2022. "Data, discretion and institutional capacity: Evidence from cash transfers in Pakistan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).

    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. Ufuk Akcigit & Salomé Baslandze & Francesca Lotti, 2023. "Connecting to Power: Political Connections, Innovation, and Firm Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(2), pages 529-564, March.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & Tarek A. Hassan & Ahmed Tahoun, 2018. "The Power of the Street: Evidence from Egypt’s Arab Spring," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 1-42.
    3. Su, Zhong-qin & Fung, Hung-Gay & Huang, Deng-shi & Shen, Chung-Hua, 2014. "Cash dividends, expropriation, and political connections: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 260-272.
    4. Carvalho, Augusto & Guimaraes, Bernardo, 2018. "State-controlled companies and political risk: Evidence from the 2014 Brazilian election," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 66-78.
    5. Grossman, Richard S. & Imai, Masami, 2016. "Taking the lord's name in vain: The impact of connected directors on 19th century British banks," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 75-93.
    6. Daeheon Choi & Chune Young Chung & Soon-Ihl Samuel Hong & Jason Young, 2020. "The Role of Political Collusion in Corporate Performance in the Korean Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-18, March.
    7. Jay Choi & Marcel Thum, 2009. "The economics of politically-connected firms," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(5), pages 605-620, October.
    8. Hallward-Driemeier,Mary C. & Kochanova,Anna & Rijkers,Bob, 2020. "Does Democratization Promote Competition? : Indonesian Manufacturing Pre and Post Suharto," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9112, The World Bank.
    9. Constantin Sonin, 2000. "Private Protection of Property Rights, Inequality, and Economic Growth in Transition Economies," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1300, Econometric Society.
    10. Tarek A Hassan & Stephan Hollander & Laurence van Lent & Ahmed Tahoun, 2019. "Firm-Level Political Risk: Measurement and Effects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 2135-2202.
    11. Zhong-qin Su & Hung-Gay Fung, 2013. "Political Connections and Firm Performance in Chinese Companies," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 283-317, August.
    12. Zengji Song & Abraham Nahm & Zongyi Zhang, 2015. "The value of partial state ownership in publicly listed private sector enterprises: evidence from China," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 336-353, September.
    13. Grossman, Herschel I & Kim, Minseong, 1996. "Predation and Accumulation," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 333-350, September.
    14. Chune Young Chung & Jung Hoon Byun & Jason Young, 2019. "Corporate Political Ties and Firm Value: Comparative Analysis in the Korean Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-25, January.
    15. Ishac Diwan & Philip Keefer & Marc Schiffbauer, 2020. "Pyramid capitalism: Cronyism, regulation, and firm productivity in Egypt," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 211-246, January.
    16. Ozlem Akin & Nicholas S. Coleman & Christian Fons‐Rosen & José‐Luis Peydró, 2021. "Political connections and informed trading: Evidence from TARP," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(3), pages 619-644, September.
    17. Sonin, Konstantin, 2003. "Why the rich may favor poor protection of property rights," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 715-731, December.
    18. Ishac Diwan & Philip Keefer & Marc Schiffbauer, 2015. "Pyramid Capitalism: Cronyism, Regulation, and Firm Productivity in Egypt," CID Working Papers 291, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    19. Leonardi, Marco & Mossucca, Rossella & Schivardi, Fabiano & Severgnini, Battista, 2021. "Gains from early support of a new political party," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 878-890.
    20. Renaud Coulomb & Marc Sangnier, 2014. "The Impact of Political Majorities on Firm Value: Do Electoral Promises or Friendship Connections Matter?," PSE Working Papers halshs-00990241, HAL.

    More about this item

    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

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. The Price of Political Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela's Maisanta (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2011) in ReplicationWiki

    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:aea:aejapp:v:3:y:2011:i:2:p:196-214. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.