IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2021-155.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Contract clientelism: How infrastructure contracts fund vote-buying

Author

Listed:
  • Alisha Holland
  • Will Freeman

Abstract

Where does the money come from to buy votes? We argue that an important source of funds for vote-buying comes from 'contract clientelism', or the provision of public contracts to private firms in exchange for campaign donations. Using quantitative data on Colombian infrastructure contracts, we demonstrate that municipalities exhibit an 'electoral contracting cycle' in which incumbents assign low-quality contracts while on the campaign trail. Contract manipulations are more common in municipalities with higher reports of clientelist activity.

Suggested Citation

  • Alisha Holland & Will Freeman, 2021. "Contract clientelism: How infrastructure contracts fund vote-buying," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-155, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-155
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2021-155-contract-clientelism-how-infrastructure-contracts-fund-vote-buying.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claessens, Stijn & Feijen, Erik & Laeven, Luc, 2008. "Political connections and preferential access to finance: The role of campaign contributions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 554-580, June.
    2. Ernesto Calvo & Maria Victoria Murillo, 2004. "Who Delivers? Partisan Clients in the Argentine Electoral Market," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(4), pages 742-757, October.
    3. De La O,Ana Lorena, 2015. "Crafting Policies to End Poverty in Latin America," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107089488.
    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. Víctor Saavedra & Andrés Felipe Soto & Miguel Ángel Carvajal, 2023. "Análisis de la Política de Financiación Electoral en Colombia," Informes de Investigación 20741, Fedesarrollo.

    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. Peter Spáč, 2021. "Pork barrel politics and electoral returns at the local level," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 479-501, September.
    2. Bai, Y., 2015. "Essays in empirical banking," Other publications TiSEM 1dfac126-8206-4aca-a15d-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Z. Jun Lin & Shengqiang Liu & Fangcheng Sun, 2017. "The Impact of Financing Constraints and Agency Costs on Corporate R&D Investment: Evidence from China," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 17(1), pages 3-42, March.
    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. Deniz Igan & Prachi Mishra & Thierry Tressel, 2012. "A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 195-230.
    6. Anne-Laure Delatte & Adrien Matray & Noémie Pinardon-Touati, 2020. "Private Credit Under Political Influence: Evidence from France," Working Papers 2020-56, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    7. Tang, Xuesong & Lin, Yan & Peng, Qing & Du, Jun & Chan, Kam C., 2016. "Politically connected directors and firm value: Evidence from forced resignations in China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 148-167.
    8. Liu, Li & Liu, Qigui & Tian, Gary & Wang, Peipei, 2018. "Government connections and the persistence of profitability: Evidence from Chinese listed firms," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 110-129.
    9. Yu-Hong Ai & Di-Yun Peng & Huan-Huan Xiong, 2021. "Impact of Environmental Regulation Intensity on Green Technology Innovation: From the Perspective of Political and Business Connections," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-23, April.
    10. Aggey Semenov & Hector Perez Saiz, 2014. "The Effect Of Campaign Contributions On State Banking Regulation And Bank Expansion In U.S," 2014 Meeting Papers 1265, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Fang,Sheng & Goh,Chorching & Roberts,Mark & Xu,L. Colin & Zeufack,Albert G., 2020. "Female Business Leaders, Business and Cultural Environment, and Productivity around the World," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9275, The World Bank.
    12. Jintao Zhang & Zhen Yang & Li Meng & Lu Han, 2022. "Environmental regulations and enterprises innovation performance: the role of R&D investments and political connections," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 4088-4109, March.
    13. Alexandra Niessen & Stefan Ruenzi, 2010. "Political Connectedness and Firm Performance: Evidence from Germany," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(4), pages 441-464, November.
    14. Li, Xiaoqing & Qiao, Penghua & Zhao, Lin, 2019. "CEO media exposure, political connection and Chinese firms' stock price synchronicity," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 61-75.
    15. Su, Zhong-qin & Xiao, Zuoping & Yu, Lin, 2019. "Do political connections enhance or impede corporate innovation?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 94-110.
    16. 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.
    17. Cheng, Louis T.W. & Leung, T.Y., 2016. "Government protection, political connection and management turnover in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 160-176.
    18. Hao Liang & Luc Renneboog, 2017. "Corporate donations and shareholder value," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(2), pages 278-316.
    19. Jeremy Bowles & Horacio Larreguy & Shelley Liu, 2020. "How Weakly Institutionalized Parties Monitor Brokers in Developing Democracies: Evidence from Postconflict Liberia," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 952-967, October.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contracts; vote-buying; Clientelism; Infrastructure; Colombia; Public goods; Firms;
    All these keywords.

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-155. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.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.