IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/econjl/v129y2019i621p2064-2089..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ebola and State Legitimacy

Author

Listed:
  • Matthias Flückiger
  • Markus Ludwig
  • Ali Sina Önder

Abstract

We exploit the West African Ebola epidemic as an event that necessitated the provision of a common-interest public good, Ebola control measures, to empirically investigate the effect of public good provision on state legitimacy. Our results show that state legitimacy, measured by trust in government authorities, increased with exposure to the epidemic. We argue, supported by results from SMS-message-based surveys, that a potentially important channel underlying this finding is a greater valuation of control measures in regions with intense transmission. Evidence further indicates that the effects of Ebola exposure are more pronounced in areas where governments responded relatively robustly to the epidemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Flückiger & Markus Ludwig & Ali Sina Önder, 2019. "Ebola and State Legitimacy," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 2064-2089.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:621:p:2064-2089.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecoj.12638
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fair, C. Christine & Kuhn, Patrick & Malhotra, Neil & Shapiro, Jacob, 2017. "Natural Disasters and Political Engagement: Evidence from the 2010-11 Pakistani Floods," Research Papers 3549, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    2. Blair, Robert A. & Morse, Benjamin S. & Tsai, Lily L., 2017. "Public health and public trust: Survey evidence from the Ebola Virus Disease epidemic in Liberia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 89-97.
    3. Weatherford, M. Stephen, 1992. "Measuring Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(1), pages 149-166, March.
    4. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2009. "The Origins of State Capacity: Property Rights, Taxation, and Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1218-1244, September.
    5. Mariaflavia Harari & Eliana La Ferrara, 2018. "Conflict, Climate, and Cells: A Disaggregated Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(4), pages 594-608, October.
    6. Marcella Alsan & Marianne Wanamaker, 2018. "Tuskegee and the Health of Black Men," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 407-455.
    7. John T. Gasper & Andrew Reeves, 2011. "Make It Rain? Retrospection and the Attentive Electorate in the Context of Natural Disasters," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(2), pages 340-355, April.
    8. Jorge Gallego, 2015. "Natural Disasters and Clientelism: the Case of Floods and Landslides in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo 12537, Universidad del Rosario.
    9. Melissa Dell & Pablo Querubin, 2018. "Nation Building Through Foreign Intervention: Evidence from Discontinuities in Military Strategies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 701-764.
    10. Marshall Burke & Erick Gong & Kelly Jones, 2015. "Income Shocks and HIV in Africa," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(585), pages 1157-1189, June.
    11. Hoyt Bleakley, 2007. "Disease and Development: Evidence from Hookworm Eradication in the American South," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 73-117.
    12. Cole, Shawn & Healy, Andrew & Werker, Eric, 2012. "Do voters demand responsive governments? Evidence from Indian disaster relief," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 167-181.
    13. Healy, Andrew & Malhotra, Neil, 2010. "Random Events, Economic Losses, and Retrospective Voting: Implications for Democratic Competence," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 5(2), pages 193-208, August.
    14. Marc L Hutchison & Kristin Johnson, 2011. "Capacity to trust? Institutional capacity, conflict, and political trust in Africa, 2000–2005," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 48(6), pages 737-752, November.
    15. Fair, C. Christine & Kuhn, Patrick M. & Malhotra, Neil & Shapiro, Jacob N., 2017. "Natural Disasters and Political Engagement: Evidence from the 2010-11 Pakistani Floods," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 12(1), pages 99-141, May.
    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. Maffioli, Elisa M., 2021. "The political economy of health epidemics: Evidence from the Ebola outbreak," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. Roberto Ramos & Carlos Sanz, 2018. "Backing the incumbent in difficult times: the electoral impact of wildfires," Working Papers 1810, Banco de España.
    3. Frost, Margaret H. & Kim, SangEun & Scartascini, Carlos & Zamora, Paula & Zechmeister, Elizabeth J., 2025. "Disaster and political trust: Evidence from the 2017 Mexico city earthquake," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    4. Petrova, Kristina & Rosvold, Elisabeth L., 2024. "Mitigating the legacy of violence: Can flood relief improve people’s trust in government in conflict-affected areas? Evidence from Pakistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    5. Gagliarducci, Stefano & Paserman, M. Daniele & Patacchini, Eleonora, 2019. "Hurricanes, Climate Change Policies and Electoral Accountability," IZA Discussion Papers 12334, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Jeroen Klomp, 2020. "Election or Disaster Support?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(1), pages 205-220, January.
    7. Thiemo Fetzer & Pedro C. L. Souza & Oliver Vanden Eynde & Austin L. Wright, 2021. "Security Transitions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(7), pages 2275-2308, July.
    8. Brian Blankenship & Johannes Urpelainen, 2020. "Electric Shock: The 2012 India Blackout and Public Confidence in Politicians," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 37(4), pages 464-490, July.
    9. Raymond P. Guiteras & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2015. "Does Development Aid Undermine Political Accountability? Leader and Constituent Responses to a Large-Scale Intervention," NBER Working Papers 21434, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Chun-Ping Chang & Aziz N. Berdiev, 2015. "Do natural disasters increase the likelihood that a government is replaced?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(17), pages 1788-1808, April.
    11. Nick Obradovich, 2017. "Climate change may speed democratic turnover," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 140(2), pages 135-147, January.
    12. Arezki, Rabah & Djankov, Simeon & Nguyen, Ha & Yotzov, Ivan, 2020. "Reversal of fortune for political incumbents after oil shocks," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118898, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Kaustav Das & Atisha Ghosh & Pushkar Maitra, 2021. "Exogenous Shocks and Electoral Outcomes: Re-examining the Rational Voter Hypothesis," Monash Economics Working Papers 2021-13, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    14. Cavalcanti, Francisco, 2018. "Voters sometimes provide the wrong incentives. The lesson of the Brazilian drought industry," MPRA Paper 88317, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Allison Carnegie & Lindsay R. Dolan, 2021. "The effects of rejecting aid on recipients’ reputations: Evidence from natural disaster responses," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 495-519, July.
    16. Klomp, Jeroen, 2019. "Does government ideology shake or shape the public finances? Empirical evidence of disaster assistance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 118-127.
    17. Arezki, Rabah & Simeon Djankov, Simeon & Nguyen, Ha & Yotzov, Ivan, 2021. "Reversal of Fortune for Political Incumbents : Evidence from Oil Shocks," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1362, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    18. Rabah Arezki & Simeon Djankov & Ha Nguyen & Ivan Yotzov, 2022. "The Political Costs of Oil Price Shocks," CESifo Working Paper Series 9763, CESifo.
    19. Livert, Felipe & Weaver, Julie Anne & Bordón, Paola, 2025. "Rewarding performance in disaster response: Evidence from local governments in Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    20. Arroyo Abad, Leticia & Maurer, Noel, 2021. "Do Pandemics Shape Elections? Retrospective voting in the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic in the United States," CEPR Discussion Papers 15678, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    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:oup:econjl:v:129:y:2019:i:621:p:2064-2089.. 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: Oxford University Press or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.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.