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Voters’ responsiveness to public employment policies

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  • Marta Curto-Grau

    (University of Heidelberg)

Abstract

This paper examines whether the distribution of public employment affects the electoral support for the incumbent government that allocates jobs. To do this we focus on the Spanish Plan for Rural Employment (PER), a program of temporary public employment introduced by the central government in two lagging regions. We evaluate voters’ responsiveness to this policy using municipal-level electoral data and employing an estimator that combines propensity score matching with a difference-indifferences strategy (Heckman et al., Econometrica 65 (1998) 2). We show that the average treatment effect on the treated is a 2 percentage-point increase of the vote share for the ruling party at general elections and we also find evidence of an increase in electoral participation.

Suggested Citation

  • Marta Curto-Grau, 2014. "Voters’ responsiveness to public employment policies," Working Papers 2014/19, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    • Handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2014-19
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public employment; electoral rewards; difference-in-differences; propensity score matching;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

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