IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cte/werepe/we1419.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who monitors the monitor? : effect of party observers on electoral outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Casas, Agustin
  • Díaz, Guillermo
  • Trindade, Andre

Abstract

We show that monitoring by individuals with preferences regarding the outcome of the supervised task interferes with the task's process: the monitors bias the results in favor of their own preferences. In particular, using an original dataset from the 2011 national elections in Argentina, we exploit a (quasi) natural experiment to show that electoral observers with partisan preferences cause a 1.7% to 7% increase in the vote count of the observers' preferred party. This bias, which appears under various electoral rules, concentrates in municipalities with lower civic capital (Guiso et al. (2010)) and weakens the accountability role of elections.

Suggested Citation

  • Casas, Agustin & Díaz, Guillermo & Trindade, Andre, 2014. "Who monitors the monitor? : effect of party observers on electoral outcomes," UC3M Working papers. Economics we1419, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    • Handle: RePEc:cte:werepe:we1419
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/rest/api/core/bitstreams/b1e8cbfe-b549-4903-9e7d-80faf9ac4189/content
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guiso, Luigi & Zingales, Luigi & Sapienza, Paola, 2010. "Civic Capital as the Missing Link," CEPR Discussion Papers 7757, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Durlauf, Steven N. & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2005. "Social Capital," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 26, pages 1639-1699, Elsevier.
    3. Beber, Bernd & Scacco, Alexandra, 2012. "What the Numbers Say: A Digit-Based Test for Election Fraud," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 211-234, April.
    4. Pedro C. Vicente, 2014. "Is Vote Buying Effective? Evidence from a Field Experiment in West Africa," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(574), pages 356-387, February.
    5. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "A political agency model of coattail voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1652-1660.
    6. Myerson, Roger B., 1993. "Incentives to Cultivate Favored Minorities Under Alternative Electoral Systems," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(4), pages 856-869, December.
    7. John Morgan & Felix Várdy, 2012. "Negative Vote Buying and the Secret Ballot," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 818-849, October.
    8. Marcel Fafchamps, 2004. "Social Capital and Development," Economics Series Working Papers 214, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2016. "Long-Term Persistence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(6), pages 1401-1436, December.
    10. Frederico Finan & Laura Schechter, 2012. "Vote‐Buying and Reciprocity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(2), pages 863-881, March.
    11. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc, 2010. "Inherited Trust and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2060-2092, December.
    12. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 526-556, June.
    13. 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.
    14. Bernardo S. Da Silveira & João M. P. De Mello, 2011. "Campaign Advertising and Election Outcomes: Quasi-natural Experiment Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections in Brazil," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(2), pages 590-612.
    15. Michael Callen & James D. Long, 2015. "Institutional Corruption and Election Fraud: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(1), pages 354-381, January.
    16. James A. Robinson & Thierry Verdier, 2013. "The Political Economy of Clientelism," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(2), pages 260-291, April.
    17. Ferraz, Claudio & Finan, Fred S., 2006. "Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil's Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt9tq6q0qn, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    18. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00846558 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Raymond Fisman & Edward Miguel, 2007. "Corruption, Norms, and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 1020-1048, December.
    20. Kei Kawai & Yasutora Watanabe, 2013. "Inferring Strategic Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 624-662, April.
    21. Halberstam, Yosh & Montagnes, B. Pablo, 2015. "Presidential coattails versus the median voter: Senator selection in US elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 40-51.
    22. Gunnar L.H Svendsen & Gert T. Svendsen, 2004. "The Creation and Destruction of Social Capital," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3276, December.
    23. Little, Andrew T., 2012. "Elections, Fraud, and Election Monitoring in the Shadow of Revolution," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 7(3), pages 249-283, June.
    24. Rundlett, Ashlea & Svolik, Milan W., 2016. "Deliver the Vote! Micromotives and Macrobehavior in Electoral Fraud," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(1), pages 180-197, February.
    25. 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.
    26. Daron Acemoglu & Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2010. "Political Selection and Persistence of Bad Governments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1511-1575.
    27. Stokes, Susan C., 2005. "Perverse Accountability: A Formal Model of Machine Politics with Evidence from Argentina," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(3), pages 315-325, August.
    28. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2008. "Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil's Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 703-745.
    29. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 1995. "Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 769-798.
    30. Durlauf, Steven N. & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2005. "Social Capital," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 26, pages 1639-1699 Elsevier.
    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. Matteo Alpino & Halvor Mehlum, 2023. "Two notions of social capital," The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(4), pages 255-282, October.
    2. Nicolas Ajzenman & Ruben Durante, 2019. "Salience and Accountability: School Infrastructureand Last-Minute Electoral Punishment," School of Government Working Papers 201905, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    3. Nicolas Ajzenman & Ruben Durante, 2019. "Salience and Accountability: School Infrastructureand Last-Minute Electoral Punishment," School of Government Working Papers wp_gob_2019_3, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    4. Juan Rosas-Munoz & José Antonio Carrillo-Viramontes, 2022. "Abundance of Resources and Incentives for Collusion in Fisheries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-20, November.

    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. Anand Murugesan & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2023. "The Puzzling Practice of Paying “Cash for Votes”," CESifo Working Paper Series 10504, CESifo.
    2. Oana Borcan, 2016. "The illicit beneficts of local party alignment in national elections," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2016-10, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    3. Leight, Jessica & Foarta, Dana & Pande, Rohini & Ralston, Laura, 2020. "Value for money? Vote-buying and politician accountability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    4. Alice Guerra & Mogens K. Justesen, 2022. "Vote buying and redistribution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 193(3), pages 315-344, December.
    5. 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.
    6. Keefer, Philip & Khemani, Stuti, 2014. "Radio's impact on preferences for patronage benefits," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6932, The World Bank.
    7. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Paul J. Gertler & Marco Gonzalez-Navarro & Simeon Nichter, 2022. "Vulnerability and Clientelism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(11), pages 3627-3659, November.
    8. Massimo Finocchiaro Castro & Calogero Guccio, 2020. "Birds of a feather flock together: trust in government, political selection and electoral punishment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 263-287, September.
    9. 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.
    10. Guiso, Luigi & Herrera, Helios & Morelli, Massimo, 2016. "Cultural Differences and Institutional Integration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(S1), pages 97-113.
    11. Vladimir Shchukin & Cemal Eren Arbatli, 2022. "Clientelism and development: Vote-buying meets patronage," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(1), pages 3-34, January.
    12. Amat, Francesc & Beramendi, Pablo, 2016. "Economic and Political Inequality: The Role of Political Mobilization," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 277, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    13. 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.
    14. Inken von Borzyskowski & Patrick M Kuhn, 2020. "Dangerously informed: Voter information and pre-electoral violence in Africa," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 15-29, January.
    15. Prummer, Anja, 2020. "Micro-targeting and polarization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    16. David Szakonyi & Ora John Reuter, 2020. "Electoral Manipulation and Regime Support: Survey Evidence from Russia," Working Papers 2020-19, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    17. Beata Łopaciuk-Gonczaryk, 2008. "Social Capital versus Institutions—Concepts and Relations," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 21.
    18. Miquel Pellicer & Eva Wegner & Lindsay Benstead & Harold Kincaid & Ellen Lust & Juanita Vasquez, 2014. "The demand side of clientelism: The role of client's perceptions and values," SALDRU Working Papers 140, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    19. Leopoldo Fergusson & Carlos Molina & Juan Felipe RiaÔøΩo, 2017. "I sell my vote, and so what? A new database and evidence from Colombia," Documentos CEDE 15443, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    20. Lehmann, M. Christian & Matarazzo, Hellen, 2019. "Voters’ response to in-kind transfers: Quasi-experimental evidence from prescription drug cost-sharing in Brazil," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).

    More about this item

    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:cte:werepe:we1419. 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: Ana Poveda (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.eco.uc3m.es/ .

    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.