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Land and Power: Theory and Evidence from Chile

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  • Jean-Marie Baland
  • James A. Robinson

Abstract

We study the connection between employment and political control. Many employment relationships concede rents to workers. For example, when worker effort is crucial for production, but only imperfectly observed. We show that, depending on the political institutions, the presence of such rents allows employers to use the threat of withdrawing them to control their workers' political behavior. We thus demonstrate that employment does not simply generate income, it also gives power to control the behavior of others. The analysis focuses on the salient example of political control, where landlords coerce the votes of their workers in the absence of a secret ballot. The model we develop generates predictions about electoral outcomes which can be tested by investigating the impact of the introduction of an effective secret ballot. Such an institutional reform reduces landlords' control, and in consequence, we should observe changes in voting behavior, since workers whose votes were previously controlled and sold can now vote freely. We test the predictions of the model by examining in detail the effects of the introduction of the secret ballot in Chile in 1958. We show that, consistent with our theory, the political reforms led to large changes in voting behavior. Before the reforms, localities with more pervasive patron-client relationships tend to exhibit a much stronger support for the right-wing parties, traditionally associated with the landed oligarchy. After the reform however, this difference across localities completely disappeared.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12517.

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Date of creation: Sep 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12517

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  9. Jackson, Matthew O. & Dekel, Eddie & Wolinsky, Asher, 2005. "Vote buying," Working Papers 1215, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    • Eddie Dekel & Matthew O. Jackson & Asher Wolinsky, 2005. "Vote Buying," Others 0503006, EconWPA.
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  1. Land and Politics
    by Marc F. Bellemare in Marc F. Bellemare on 2012-04-18 09:00:22
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Cited by:
  1. Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo, 2011. "Race v. Suffrage: The Determinants of Development in Mississippi," IZA Discussion Papers 6017, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  2. Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo, 2012. "De Jure and de Facto Determinants of Power: Evidence from Mississippi," CEPR Discussion Papers 9064, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  3. Stefan Dercon & Bet Caeyers, 2008. "Political Connections and Social Networks in Targeted Transfer Programmes: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2008-33, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
  4. Baland, Jean-Marie & Robinson, James A, 2011. "The Political Value of Land: Democratization and Land Prices in Chile," CEPR Discussion Papers 8296, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  5. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing & Yadav, Vandana, 2012. "Does sharecropping affect productivity and long-term investment ? evidence from West Bengal's tenancy reforms," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6293, The World Bank.
  6. Denis COGNEAU, 2012. "The Political Dimension Of Inequality During Economic Development," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 35, pages 11-36.
  7. Aidt, T.S. & Jensen, P.S., 2012. "From Open to Secret Ballot: Vote Buying and Modernization," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1221, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
  8. Suresh Naidu, 2012. "Suffrage, Schooling, and Sorting in the Post-Bellum U.S. South," NBER Working Papers 18129, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Monica Martinez-Bravo, 2013. "The Role Of Local Officials In New Democracies: Evidence From Indonesia," Working Papers wp2013_1302, CEMFI.
  10. repec:mod:depeco:0001 is not listed on IDEAS
  11. Giacomo De Luca, 2008. "Strategic Registration of Voters: The Chilean Case," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 08-17, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.

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