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Buying votes vs. supplying public services : political incentives to under-invest in pro-poor policies

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  • Khemani, Stuti

Abstract

This paper uses unique survey data to provide, for the first time in the literature, direct evidence that vote buying in poor economies is associated with lower provision of public services that disproportionately benefit the poor. Various features of the data and the institutional context allow the interpretation of this correlation as the equilibrium policy consequence of clientelist politics, ruling out alternate explanations (such as, for example, poverty driving both vote buying and health outcomes). The data come from the Philippines, a country context that allows for measuring vote buying during elections and services delivered by the administrative unit controlled by winners of those elections. The data reveal a significant, robust negative correlation between vote buying and the delivery of primary health services. In places where households report more vote buying, government records show that municipalities invest less in basic health services for mothers and children; and, quite strikingly, as a summary measure of weak service delivery performance, a higher percentage of children are severely under-weight.

Suggested Citation

  • Khemani, Stuti, 2013. "Buying votes vs. supplying public services : political incentives to under-invest in pro-poor policies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6339, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6339
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Hicken, Allen & Leider, Stephen & Ravanilla, Nico & Yang, Dean, 2018. "Temptation in vote-selling: Evidence from a field experiment in the Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 1-14.
    2. Anusha Nath & Dilip Mookherjee, 2017. "Resource Transfers to Local Governments: Political Manipulation and Voting Patterns in West Bengal," 2017 Meeting Papers 1266, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Dhillon, Amrita & Krishnan, Pramila & Patnam, Manasa & Perroni, Carlo, 2016. "The Natural Resource Curse Revisited:Theory and Evidence from India," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 268, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    4. Marcel Fafchamps & Julien Labonne, 2017. "Do Politicians’ Relatives Get Better Jobs? Evidence from Municipal Elections," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 268-300.
    5. Rose,Jonathan & Gowthaman,Balachandran, 2015. "Civil service recruitment in Comoros : a case of political clientelism in a decentralized state," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7428, The World Bank.
    6. Khemani, Stuti, 2015. "Buying votes versus supplying public services: Political incentives to under-invest in pro-poor policies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 84-93.
    7. Schweisfurth, Michele & Davies, Lynn & Symaco, Lorraine Pe & Valiente, Oscar, 2018. "Higher education, bridging capital, and developmental leadership in the Philippines: Learning to be a crossover reformer," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-8.
    8. Tristan Canare & Ronald U. Mendoza, 2022. "Access to Information and Other Correlates of Vote Buying and Selling Behaviour: Insights from Philippine Data," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 34(2), pages 139-161, July.

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