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Vote-Buying and Reciprocity

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Frederico Finan
  • Laura A. Schechter

Abstract

While vote-buying is common, little is known about how politicians determine who to target. We argue that vote-buying can be sustained by an internalized norm of reciprocity. Receiving money engenders feelings of obligation. Combining survey data on vote-buying with an experiment-based measure of reciprocity, we show that politicians target reciprocal individuals. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of social preferences in determining political behavior.

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File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17411.pdf
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 17411.

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Date of creation: Sep 2011
Publication status: published as Frederico Finan & Laura Schechter, 2012. "Vote‐Buying and Reciprocity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(2), pages 863-881, 03.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17411
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
  • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
  • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

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