IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/280926.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Favoritism by the governing elite

Author

Listed:
  • Asatryan, Zareh
  • Baskaran, Thushyanthan
  • Birkholz, Carlo
  • Hufschmidt, Patrick

Abstract

In this paper, we study the extent to which ministers engage in regional favoritism. We are the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of a larger set of the governing elite, not just focusing on the primary leader. We hand-collect birthplaces of this governing elite globally. Combining this information with extended night-time luminosity and novel population data over the period from 1992 to 2016, we utilize a staggered difference-in-differences estimator and find that birthplaces of ministers globally emit on average roughly 7% more nightlight. We do not find evidence that this is driven by, or induces migration to their home regions. The size of our data set lets us investigate heterogeneities along a number of dimensions: political power, ministerial portfolio, and the institutional setting.

Suggested Citation

  • Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Birkholz, Carlo & Hufschmidt, Patrick, 2023. "Favoritism by the governing elite," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-053, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:280926
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/280926/1/1876351675.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    • Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Birkholz, Carlo & Hufschmidt, Patrick, 2023. "Favoritism by the governing elite," Ruhr Economic Papers 1029, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carozzi, Felipe & Repetto, Luca, 2016. "Sending the pork home: Birth town bias in transfers to Italian municipalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 42-52.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Guido Tabellini, 2007. "Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part I: A Single Policy Task," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 169-179, March.
    3. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    4. Quoc-Anh Do & Kieu-Trang Nguyen & Anh N. Tran, 2017. "One Mandarin Benefits the Whole Clan: Hometown Favoritism in an Authoritarian Regime," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 1-29, October.
    5. Zareh Asatryan & Annika Havlik, 2020. "The political economy of multilateral lending to European regions," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 707-740, July.
    6. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Zohal Hessami, 2017. "Political alignment and intergovernmental transfers in parliamentary systems: evidence from Germany," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 75-98, April.
    7. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2016. "The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1802-1848, July.
    8. Robin Burgess & Remi Jedwab & Edward Miguel & Ameet Morjaria & Gerard Padró i Miquel, 2015. "The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(6), pages 1817-1851, June.
    9. Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Hufschmidt, Patrick & Stöcker, Alexander, 2021. "Regional favoritism and human capital accumulation in Africa," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-030, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. Hessami, Zohal & da Fonseca, Mariana Lopes, 2020. "Female political representation and substantive effects on policies: A literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    11. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 2003. "Elected Versus Appointed Regulators: Theory and Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1176-1206, September.
    12. Anna Bruederle & Roland Hodler, 2018. "Nighttime lights as a proxy for human development at the local level," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-22, September.
    13. David Albouy, 2013. "Partisan Representation in Congress and the Geographic Distribution of Federal Funds," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 127-141, March.
    14. Alesina, Alberto & Tabellini, Guido, 2008. "Bureaucrats or politicians? Part II: Multiple policy tasks," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 426-447, April.
    15. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    16. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2021. "Appointed public officials and local favoritism: Evidence from the German states," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    17. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2004. "The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    18. Widmer, Philine & Zurlinden, Noémie, 2022. "Ministers Engage in Favoritism Too," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    19. Gibson, John & Olivia, Susan & Boe-Gibson, Geua & Li, Chao, 2021. "Which night lights data should we use in economics, and where?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    20. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    21. Patrick Francois & Ilia Rainer & Francesco Trebbi, 2015. "How Is Power Shared in Africa?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 465-503, March.
    22. Khalil, Umair & Oak, Mandar & Ponnusamy, Sundar, 2021. "Political favoritism by powerful politicians: Evidence from chief ministers in India," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    23. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    24. Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Birkholz, Carlo & Gomtsyan, David, 2021. "Favoritism and firms: Micro evidence and macro implications," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-031, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    25. Quoc-Anh Do & Kieu-Trang Nguyen & Anh N. Tran, 2017. "One Mandarin Benefits the Whole Clan: Hometown Favoritism in an Authoritarian Regime," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 1-29, October.
    26. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/sj22pruud8a7b8cdlvom4sbtp is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Nyrup, Jacob & Bramwell, Stuart, 2020. "Who Governs? A New Global Dataset on Members of Cabinets," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(4), pages 1366-1374, November.
    28. J. Vernon Henderson & Adam Storeygard & David N. Weil, 2012. "Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 994-1028, April.
    29. Baker, Andrew C. & Larcker, David F. & Wang, Charles C.Y., 2022. "How much should we trust staggered difference-in-differences estimates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 370-395.
    30. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    31. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Hodler, Roland & Parks, Bradley C. & Raschky, Paul A. & Tierney, Michael J., 2021. "Is Favoritism a Threat to Chinese Aid Effectiveness? A Subnational Analysis of Chinese Development Projects," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    32. Weingast, Barry R & Shepsle, Kenneth A & Johnsen, Christopher, 1981. "The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 642-664, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Hufschmidt, Patrick & Stöcker, Alexander, 2021. "Regional favoritism and human capital accumulation in Africa," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-030, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2021. "Appointed public officials and local favoritism: Evidence from the German states," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    3. Lindlacher Valentin & Gustav Pirich, 2024. "The Impact of China’s “Stadium Diplomacy” on Local Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," CESifo Working Paper Series 10893, CESifo.
    4. Tien Manh Vu & Hiroyuki Yamada, 2021. "Firms and regional favouritism," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(4), pages 711-734, October.
    5. Brice Fabre & Marc Sangnier, 2022. "Where do politicians send pork? Evidence from central government transfers to French municipalities," DeFiPP Working Papers 2202, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    6. Guglielmo Barone & Guido de Blasio & Elena Gentili, 2020. "Politically connected cities: Italy 1951-1991," Working Papers wp1158, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    7. Fernando Antonio Ignacio González & Lara Sofia Cantero & Pablo Ariel Szyszko, 2022. "Favoritismo Regional en Argentina," Working Papers 199, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    8. Stephan Schneider & Sven Kunze, 2021. "Disastrous Discretion: Ambiguous Decision Situations Foster Political Favoritism," KOF Working papers 21-491, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    9. Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Birkholz, Carlo & Hufschmidt, Patrick, 2021. "Regional redistribution of mineral resource wealth in Africa," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-032, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. Ma, Guangrong & Qi, Qingyuan & Liu, Mengxin, 2023. "A lack of nostalgia: Hometown favoritism and allocation of intergovernmental transfer in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    11. Xie, Tingting & Yuan, Ye, 2023. "Go with the wind: Spatial impacts of environmental regulations on economic activities in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    12. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Hodler, Roland & Parks, Bradley C. & Raschky, Paul A. & Tierney, Michael J., 2019. "African leaders and the geography of China's foreign assistance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 44-71.
    13. Isabelle Chort & Berk Öktem, 2023. "Agricultural shocks, coping policies and deforestation: evidence from the coffee leaf rust epidemic in mexico," Working Papers hal-03715600, HAL.
    14. Rik Chakraborti & Gavin Roberts, 2023. "How price-gouging regulation undermined COVID-19 mitigation: county-level evidence of unintended consequences," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(1), pages 51-83, July.
    15. Mikhail Mamonov & Anna Pestova & Steven Ongena, 2023. "“Crime and Punishment”? How Banks Anticipate and Propagate Global Financial Sanctions," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp753, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    16. Galina Zudenkova, 2015. "Political cronyism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(3), pages 473-492, March.
    17. Hufschmidt, Patrick & Ume, Chukwuma Otum, 2023. "Conflicts and political intervention: Evidence from the anti-open grazing laws in Nigeria," Ruhr Economic Papers 1009, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    18. Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Birkholz, Carlo & Gomtsyan, David, 2021. "Favoritism and firms: Micro evidence and macro implications," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-031, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Cl'ement de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultf{oe}uille, 2021. "Two-Way Fixed Effects and Differences-in-Differences with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects: A Survey," Papers 2112.04565, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2022.
    20. Davidson, Carl & Heyman, Fredrik & Matusz, Steven & Sjöholm, Fredrik & Chun Zhu, Susan, 2022. "How International Experience Helps Shape Labor Market Outcomes," Working Paper Series 1453, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Favoritism; elite capture; spatiality; luminosity; population; democracy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    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:zbw:zewdip:280926. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.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.