IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2021-141.html

Voter coercion and pro-poor redistribution in rural Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Dragan Filipovich
  • Miguel Niño-Zarazúa
  • Alma Santillán Hernández

Abstract

Voter coercion is a recurrent threat to pro-poor redistribution in young democracies. In this study we focus on Mexico's paradigmatic Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) programme. We investigate whether local mayors exploited POP to coerce voters, and if so, what effect these actions had on the municipal incumbent's vote.

Suggested Citation

  • Dragan Filipovich & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Alma Santillán Hernández, 2021. "Voter coercion and pro-poor redistribution in rural Mexico," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-141, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-141
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2021-141-voter-coercion-pro-poor-redistribution-rural-Mexico.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kosuke Imai & Gary King & Carlos Velasco Rivera, 2016. "Do Nonpartisan Programmatic Policies Have Partisan Electoral Effects? Evidence from Two Large Scale Randomized Experiments," Working Paper 366526, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    2. Ana L. De La O, 2013. "Do Conditional Cash Transfers Affect Electoral Behavior? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Mexico," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(1), pages 1-14, January.
    3. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D Cattaneo & Max H Farrell, 2020. "Optimal bandwidth choice for robust bias-corrected inference in regression discontinuity designs," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(2), pages 192-210.
    4. Erikson, Robert S. & Rader, Kelly, 2017. "Much Ado About Nothing: RDD and the Incumbency Advantage," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 269-275, April.
    5. Dragan Filipovich & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Alma Santillán Hernández, 2018. "Campaign externalities, programmatic spending, and voting preferences in rural Mexico: The case of Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera programme," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-27, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Dragan Filipovich & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Alma Santillán Hernández, 2018. "Campaign externalities, programmatic spending, and voting preferences in rural Mexico: The case of Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera programme," WIDER Working Paper Series 027, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Veronica Grembi & Tommaso Nannicini & Ugo Troiano, 2016. "Do Fiscal Rules Matter?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 1-30, July.
    8. Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2015. "Identifying the source of incumbency advantage through an electoral reform," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 239, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    9. Lee, David S., 2008. "Randomized experiments from non-random selection in U.S. House elections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 675-697, February.
    10. Fox, Jonathan A., 2007. "Accountability Politics: Power and Voice in Rural Mexico," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199208852.
    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. De Benedetto, Marco Alberto & De Paola, Maria & Scoppa, Vincenzo & Smirnova, Janna, 2025. "Erasmus program and labor market outcomes: Evidence from a fuzzy regression discontinuity design," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Cerqua, Augusto & Fiorino, Nadia & Galli, Emma, 2024. "Do green parties affect local waste management policies?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    3. Dor Leventer & Daniel Nevo, 2024. "Correcting invalid regression discontinuity designs with multiple time period data," Papers 2408.05847, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2025.
    4. Bartnicki, Sławomir & Alimowski, Maciej & Górecki, Maciej A., 2022. "The anomalous electoral advantage: Evidence from over 17,000 mayoral candidacies in Poland," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Patricia Justino & Bruno Martorano, 2016. "Redistribution, inequality and political participation: Evidence from Mexico during the 2008 financial crisis," WIDER Working Paper Series 140, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Ari Hyytinen & Jaakko Meriläinen & Tuukka Saarimaa & Otto Toivanen & Janne Tukiainen, 2018. "When does regression discontinuity design work? Evidence from random election outcomes," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 1019-1051, July.
    7. Gregory J. Wawro & Ira Katznelson, 2020. "American political development and new challenges of causal inference," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(3), pages 299-314, December.
    8. Mauricio Villamizar‐Villegas & Freddy A. Pinzon‐Puerto & Maria Alejandra Ruiz‐Sanchez, 2022. "A comprehensive history of regression discontinuity designs: An empirical survey of the last 60 years," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1130-1178, September.
    9. Taneesha Datta, 2025. "Political representation and judicial outcomes: Eidence from India," CSAE Working Paper Series 2025-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    10. Antony Mbithi & Yoko Kijima, 2026. "Rent Extraction and Political Accountability: Evidence From Audit Impact in Kenya," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 255-287, February.
    11. Ang, Geer & Tan, Ya & Zhai, Yingjia & Zhang, Fan & Zhang, Qinghua, 2024. "Housing wealth, fertility and children's health in China: A regression discontinuity design," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    12. Moyu Liao, 2025. "Treatment Effects in the Regression Discontinuity Model with Counterfactual Cutoff and Distorted Running Variables," Papers 2511.22886, arXiv.org.
    13. Diop, Thierno Bocar & Védrine, Lionel, 2025. "Did crop diversity criterion from CAP green payments affect both economic and environmental farm performances? Quasi-experimental evidence from France," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    14. Khanna, Gaurav & Zimmermann, Laura, 2017. "Guns and butter? Fighting violence with the promise of development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 120-141.
    15. Giacomo Battiston & Gianmarco Daniele & Marco Le Moglie & Paolo Pinotti, 2022. "Fueling Organized Crime: The Mexican War on Drugs and Oil Thefts," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0286, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    16. Travers Barclay Child & Elena Nikolova, 2017. "War and Social Attitudes: Revisiting Consensus Views," HiCN Working Papers 258, Households in Conflict Network.
    17. Leandro de Magalhaes & Salomo Hirvonen, 2019. "The Incumbent-Challenger Advantage and the Winner-Runner-up Advantage," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 19/710, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    18. Sonia Bhalotra & Irma Clots-Figueras & Lakshmi Iyer, "undated". "Pathbreakers? Women’s Electoral Success and Future Political Participation," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-277, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    19. Fusejima, Koki & Ishihara, Takuya & Sawada, Masayuki, 2025. "A unified test for regression discontinuity designs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    20. Yang He & Otávio Bartalotti, 2020. "Wild bootstrap for fuzzy regression discontinuity designs: obtaining robust bias-corrected confidence intervals," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(2), pages 211-231.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-141. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.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.