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Does Development Aid Undermine Political Accountability? Leader and Constituent Responses to a Large-Scale Intervention

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  • Raymond P Guiteras
  • Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak

Abstract

Comprehensive program evaluation requires capturing indirect effects of an intervention, such as changes in leaders’ efforts and constituents’ attitudes towards leaders. We study political economy responses to a large-scale development program in Bangladesh, in which 346 communities consisting of 16,600 households were randomly assigned subsidies for sanitation investments. [Working Paper No. 489].

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  • Raymond P Guiteras & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2016. "Does Development Aid Undermine Political Accountability? Leader and Constituent Responses to a Large-Scale Intervention," Working Papers id:11271, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:11271
    Note: Institutional Papers
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    Cited by:

    1. Das, Sabyasachi, 2020. "(Don’t) leave politics out of it: Reflections on public policies, experiments, and interventions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    2. Sabyasachi Das & Souvik Dutta & Abhirup Sarkar, 2019. "Political Economy of Third Party Interventions," Working Papers 1029, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    3. Matthew Krupoff & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak & Alexander van Geen, 2020. "Evaluating Strategies to Reduce Arsenic Poisoning in South Asia: A View from the Social Sciences," Asian Development Review, MIT Press, vol. 37(2), pages 21-44, September.
    4. Sabyasachi Das, 2019. "(Don’t) Leave Politics Out of It: Reflections on Public Policies, Experiments, and Interventions," Working Papers 24, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    5. Das, Sabyasachi & Dutta, Souvik & Sarkar, Abhirup, 2021. "Political economy of third party interventions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    6. Bai, Yu & Li, Yanjun & Wang, Yunuo, 2022. "Chinese aid and local political attitudes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    7. Sujin Cha, 2024. "Chinese aid and corruption in African local governments," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(1), pages 587-605, January.
    8. Toke S. Aidt & Facundo Albornoz & Esther Hauk, 2021. "Foreign Influence and Domestic Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 426-487, June.
    9. Blattman, Christopher & Emeriau, Mathilde & Fiala, Nathan, 2018. "Do anti-poverty programs sway voters? Experimental evidence from Uganda," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101663, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Benjamin Marx, 2018. "Elections as Incentives: Project Completion and Visibility in African Politics," Working Papers hal-03873801, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    General Equilibrium Effects of Interventions; Political Economy; Sanitation; households; subsidies; political accountability; leader; Intervention; rural Bangladesh; villages; foreign aid; public sector investment; crowding out;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

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