When firms give money to candidates for public office, what return can they expect on their investment? The answer may depend on the party in power and whether it rewards longstanding contributors, pays back all donors on equal terms, or refuses to be swayed by corporate money. In this analysis of Brazil, we use a regression discontinuity design to identify the effect of an electoral victory on government contracts for a candidate's corporate donors. Firms specializing in public works projects can expect a substantial boost in government contracts-at least 8.5 times the value of their contributions-when they donate to a federal deputy candidate from the ruling Workers' Party (PT) and that candidate wins office. We find no effect among allied parties, suggesting that the PT uses pork to favor its members rather than to maintain a governing coalition. The profile of public works donors to major parties implies that under the PT's stewardship, smaller firms were able to break into the traditionally oligopolistic donations-for-contracts market, presumably taking advantage of the party's lack of relationships with established players. RESUMOQuando empresas fazem doações eleitorais, que retorno sobre investimento podem esperar? A resposta depende de que partido que está no governo, e se ele premia seus contribuintes históricos, recompensa doadores de igual para igual, ou recusa-se a ser influenciado por dinheiro corporativo. Neste artigo, aplicamos o método de descontinuidade de regressão a dados eleitorais brasileiros para identificar o efeito de uma vitoria eleitoral na obtenção de contratos públicos por empresas que fizeram doações de campanha. As empreteiras podem esperar um grande aumento nos seus contratos públicos-pelo menos 8,5 vezes o valor das suas contribuições-quando fazem doações a um candidato a deputado federal do Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) e esse candidato vence a eleição. Não encontramos qualquer efeito entre os partidos aliados, sugerindo que o PT usa os contratos públicos para favorecer a seus filiados, não para manter uma coalizão de governo. O perfil das empreteiras que doam aos principais partidos sugere que, sob o controle do PT, pequenas e médias empresas conseguiram entrar no mercado tradicionalmente oligopolístico de doações e contratos, provavelmente aproveitando a falta de relações do PT com os veteranos daquele jogo.

This study estimates the effect of economic conditions on redistributive conflict. We examine land invasions in Brazil using a panel data set with over 50,000 municipality-year observations. Adverse economic shocks, instrumented by rainfall, cause the rural poor to invade and occupy large landholdings. This effect exhibits substantial heterogeneity by land inequality and land tenure systems, but not by other observable variables. In highly unequal municipalities, negative income shocks cause twice as many land invasions as in municipalities with average land inequality. Cross-sectional estimates using fine within-region variation also suggest the importance of land inequality in explaining redistributive conflict. © 2010 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A new form of populism, combining broad-based benefits for urban workers with export promotion, emerged in Argentina under Néstor Kirchner (2003. This article argues that changes in agricultural production created the conditions for this "export-oriented populism." Historically, Argentina's main exports, beef and wheat, were also the primary consumption goods of urban workers. Scholars such as Guillermo O'Donnell have argued that this linkage increased rural-urban conflict, resulting in shifting coalitions and recurring crises. Today, soybeans have replaced beef and wheat as the country's leading export. Because soybeans are not consumed by the working class, Kirchner could both promote and tax their export, generating fiscal revenue for populist programs while not harming the effective purchasing power of urban workers or provoking a balance-of-payments crisis. Export orientation thus provided the basis for a new variant of Argentine populism. This study offers a new argument within the classic research tradition on the interaction between politics and various types of export growth. It likewise provides an additional basis for arguing that populism, as a form of politics, can arise in diverse economic circumstances. Furthermore, this article contends that, rather than uniformly promoting political stability, the effect of export booms is conditioned by the nature of economic linkages between the export sector and the domestic economy.