IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mib/wpaper/561.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Votes for Work? Job Patronage and Electoral Mobilization in Albania

Author

Listed:
  • Luca J. Uberti
  • Drini Imami
  • Mariapia Mendola

Abstract

We examine the impact of an election campaign on the labor market outcomes of incumbent party supporters. Using unique data on voters' political preferences during a critical pre-election period in Albania, our difference-in-differences estimates show that supporting the ruling party prior to elections significantly improves individuals' employment and earnings. This labor market premium is particularly pronounced among individuals with low costs of campaign participation, whereas patronage jobs are concentrated in lower-tier public sector positions. Administrative data further show that job distribution to party supporters strongly correlates with increased vote shares for the incumbent. Our findings suggest that parties strategically allocate public employment to mobilize grassroots supporters and secure votes—a practice that fosters corruption and weakens democratic institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Luca J. Uberti & Drini Imami & Mariapia Mendola, 2025. "Votes for Work? Job Patronage and Electoral Mobilization in Albania," Working Papers 561, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:mib:wpaper:561
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.dems.unimib.it/repec/pdf/mibwpaper561.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • M59 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Other

    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:mib:wpaper:561. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Matteo Pelagatti (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpmibit.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.