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Winning or buying hearts and minds?: Cash transfers and political attitudes in Pakistan

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  • Yashodhan Ghorpade
  • Patricia Justino

Abstract

This paper studies how household-level receipts of cash transfers affect political attitudes in Pakistan. The paper exploits the locally exogenous eligibility cut-off of the flagship Benazir Income Support Programme to estimate causal effects. The main results show evidence of improved satisfaction with the government among beneficiaries of the programme. The paper discusses what potential mechanisms may explain this result and finds no evidence of changes in attitudes being associated with improvements in state capacity or better economic and security prospects.

Suggested Citation

  • Yashodhan Ghorpade & Patricia Justino, 2019. "Winning or buying hearts and minds?: Cash transfers and political attitudes in Pakistan," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-91, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2019-91
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    Cited by:

    1. Ankush Goyal & Rajender Kumar, 2022. "Does Social Welfare Programmes Influence Households Trust in Local Administration and Their Political Participation? Evidence from the MGNREG Scheme in India," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 16(3), pages 602-617, December.
    2. Anke Hoeffler & Patricia Justino, 2024. "Aid and fragile states," Chapters, in: Raj M. Desai & Shantayanan Devarajan & Jennifer L. Tobin (ed.), Handbook of Aid and Development, chapter 14, pages 225-246, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Haseeb, Muhammad & Vyborny, Kate, 2022. "Data, discretion and institutional capacity: Evidence from cash transfers in Pakistan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).

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    Keywords

    Social protection; Political attitudes; Cash transfers; Pakistan;
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