IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2021-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Clientelism, public goods provision, and governance

Author

Listed:
  • Maria C. Lo Bue
  • Kunal Sen
  • Staffan I. Lindberg

Abstract

It is widely believed that clientelism—the giving of material goods in return for electoral support—is associated with poorer development outcomes. However, systematic cross-country evidence on the deleterious effects of clientelism on development outcomes is lacking. In this paper we examine the relationship between political clientelism, public goods provision, and governance quality using cross-country panel data for 161 countries for the period 1900-2017.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria C. Lo Bue & Kunal Sen & Staffan I. Lindberg, 2021. "Clientelism, public goods provision, and governance," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-98, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-98
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2021-98-clientelism-public-goods-provision-governance.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alonso-Borrego, Cesar & Arellano, Manuel, 1999. "Symmetrically Normalized Instrumental-Variable Estimation Using Panel Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(1), pages 36-49, January.
    2. Bardhan, Pranab & Mookherjee, Dilip, 2006. "Pro-poor targeting and accountability of local governments in West Bengal," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 303-327, April.
    3. Scott, James C., 1969. "Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(4), pages 1142-1158, December.
    4. James A. Robinson & Thierry Verdier, 2013. "The Political Economy of Clientelism," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(2), pages 260-291, April.
    5. Enrique Moral-Benito, 2013. "Likelihood-Based Estimation of Dynamic Panels With Predetermined Regressors," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(4), pages 451-472, October.
    6. Min,Brian, 2015. "Power and the Vote," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107525382.
    7. Van Leeuwen, Bas & van Leeuwen-Li, Jieli & Foldvari, Peter, 2011. "Regional human capital in Republican and New China: Its spread, quality and effects on economic growth," MPRA Paper 43582, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Dmitry Didenko & Peter Foldvari & Bas van Leeuwen, 2012. "A dataset on human capital in the former Soviet Union area; Sources, methods, and first results," Working Papers 0035, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    9. Robert Deacon, 2009. "Public good provision under dictatorship and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 241-262, April.
    10. Van Leeuwen, Bas & van Leeuwen-Li, Jieli & Foldvari, Peter, 2012. "Education as a driver of income inequality in twentieth-century Africa," MPRA Paper 43574, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Johnston, Michael, 1979. "Patrons and Clients, Jobs and Machines: A Case Study of the Uses of Patronage," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(2), pages 385-398, June.
    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. Lindberg, Staffan I. & Lo Bue, Maria C. & Sen, Kunal, 2022. "Clientelism, corruption and the rule of law," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    2. Subhasish Dey & Kunal Sen, 2016. "Is partisan alignment electorally rewarding? Evidence from village council elections in India," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-063-16, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    3. Prakash, Nishith & Rockmore, Marc & Uppal, Yogesh, 2019. "Do criminally accused politicians affect economic outcomes? Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    4. Anindya Bhattacharya & Anirban Kar & Alita Nandi, 2016. "Local Institutional Structure and Clientelistic Access to Employment: The Case of MGNREGS in Three States of India," Working Papers id:11549, eSocialSciences.
    5. Kyriacou, Andreas P., 2023. "Clientelism and fiscal redistribution: Evidence across countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Anusha Nath & Dilip Mookherjee, 2017. "Resource Transfers to Local Governments: Political Manipulation and Voting Patterns in West Bengal," 2017 Meeting Papers 1266, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Callen, Michael & Gulzar, Saad & Hasanain, Ali & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Rezaee, Arman, 2023. "The political economy of public sector absence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    8. Boräng, Frida & Jagers, Sverker C. & Povitkina, Marina, 2016. "Political determinants of electricity provision in small island developing states," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 725-734.
    9. Deserranno, Erika & Bandiera, Oriana & Rasul, Imran, 2020. "Development Policy through the Lens of Social Structure," CEPR Discussion Papers 14876, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Farah, Alfa, 2019. "Winning a district election in a clientelistic society: Evidence from decentralized Indonesia," CIW Discussion Papers 2/2019, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    11. Pranab Bardhan & Dilip Mookherjee, 2023. "Political clientelism and capture: theory and an application," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 17-34, July.
    12. Arellano, Manuel, 2016. "Modelling optimal instrumental variables for dynamic panel data models," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 238-261.
    13. Pranab Bardhan & Sandip Mitra & Dilip Mookherjee & Anusha Nath, 2018. "Resource Transfers to Local Governments: Political Manipulation and Household Responses in West Bengal," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-319, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    14. Mauricio Morales & Fabián Belmar, 2022. "Clientelism, Turnout and Incumbents’ Performance in Chilean Local Government Elections," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-19, August.
    15. Michael Callen & Saad Gulzar & Syed Ali Hasanain & Muhammad Yasir Khan, 2016. "The Political Economy of Public Sector Absence: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan," NBER Working Papers 22340, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Arturas Juodis, 2013. "Cointegration Testing in Panel VAR Models Under Partial Identification and Spatial Dependence," UvA-Econometrics Working Papers 13-08, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Dept. of Econometrics.
    17. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2008. "The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 14335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. 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.
    19. Florian Leon, 2017. "Implications of loan portfolio concentration in Cambodia," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 282-296.
    20. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Clientelism; Development; Benefit programmes; Corruption; Welfare;
    All these 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-2021-98. 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.