Institutional Corruption and Election Fraud: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan

Callen, Michael; Long, James E.

doi:10.1257/aer.20120427

Cited by 110 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Important work has been done not just on understanding the size of informal economies (Cagan [1958], Tanzi [1983], Schneider & Enste [2000], Alexeev & Pyle [2003], Gorodnichenko, Martinez-Vazquez & Peter [2009], Braguinsky, Mityakov & Liscovich [2014]), but also on understanding informality's implications (La Porta & Shleifer [2008], Hasker & Okten [2008], Ç ule & Fulton [2009], Paula & Scheinkman [2010] , Goel & Saunoris [2014], Callen & James [2015]). We offer a different approach to understanding informality that enlightens the incidence of tax evasion across industries, especially high level ones.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Income Tax Evasion Using Bank Credit: Evidence from Greece *

Artavanis

Morse²,

Tsoutsoura³

2016

The Quarterly Journal of Economics

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We document that in semiformal economies, banks lend to tax-evading individuals based on the bank's assessment of the individual's true income. This observation leads to a novel approach to estimate tax evasion. We use microdata on household credit from a Greek bank, and replicate the bank underwriting model to infer the banks estimate of individuals' true income. We estimate that 43%-45% of self-employed income goes unreported and thus untaxed. For 2009, this implies 28.2 billion euros of unreported income, implying foregone tax revenues of over 11 billion euros or 30% of the deficit. Our method innovation allows for estimating the industry distribution of tax evasion in settings where uncovering the incidence of hidden cash transactions is difficult using other methods. Primary tax-evading industries are professional servicesmedicine, law, engineering, education, and media. We conclude with evidence that contemplates the importance of institutions, paper trail and political willpower for the persistence of tax evasion. * We thank our referees and the editor for many insightful comments and useful suggestions. We are grateful for helpful comments from Loukas Karabarbounis, Amit Seru, Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, Luigi Zingales, our discussants

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Income Tax Evasion Using Bank Credit: Evidence from Greece *

Artavanis

Morse²,

Tsoutsoura³

2016

The Quarterly Journal of Economics

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“… Below, we address whether including fraudulent polling centers in the sample affects the results. Callen and Long () discuss the mechanics of rigging in 2010 and why 590 votes or more per station is a likely fraud indicator. …”

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confidence: 99%

Damaging democracy? Security provision and turnout in Afghan elections^†

Condra

Callen²,

Iyengar

et al. 2019

Economics & Politics

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In emerging democracies, elections are encouraged as a route to democratization. However, not only does violence often threaten these elections, but citizens often view as corrupt the security forces deployed to combat violence. We examine the effects of such security provision. In Afghanistan's 2010 parliamentary election, polling centers with similar histories of pre‐election violence unintentionally received different deployments of the Afghan National Police, enabling identification of police's effects on turnout. Using data from the universe of polling sites and various household surveys, data usually unavailable in conflict settings, we estimate increases in police presence decreased voter turnout by an average of 30%. Our results adjudicate between competing theoretical mechanisms through which security forces could affect turnout, and show behavior is not driven by voter anticipation of election‐day violence. This highlights a pitfall for building government legitimacy via elections in weakly institutionalized and conflict‐affected states.

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“…Fraud seems to be displaced to nearby electoral areas that are unmonitored (Ichino and Schündeln ). New monitoring technologies appear to be very effective at reducing aggregation fraud (Callen and Long ). Electoral violence can be effectively reduced and turnout increased by an anti‐violence community campaign (Collier and Vicente ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fighting for Votes: Theory and Evidence on the Causes of Electoral Violence

Sterck

2019

Economica

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I develop a theory of pre‐electoral violence, in which parties resort to violent tactics if political competition is tight and violent supporters are numerous, and if polarization between violent supporters is high. The importance of these conditions varies with the type of violence (clashes, intimidation or murders). I test the model using data on the 2010 elections in Burundi. In line with the model, electoral violence before the election was more likely in municipalities characterized by both close political competition and high density of demobilized combatants. Violence was also more likely where polarization between demobilized combatants was high.

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Institutional Corruption and Election Fraud: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan

Cited by 110 publications

References 36 publications

Measuring Income Tax Evasion Using Bank Credit: Evidence from Greece *

Measuring Income Tax Evasion Using Bank Credit: Evidence from Greece *

Damaging democracy? Security provision and turnout in Afghan elections^†

Fighting for Votes: Theory and Evidence on the Causes of Electoral Violence

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Institutional Corruption and Election Fraud: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan

Cited by 110 publications

References 36 publications

Measuring Income Tax Evasion Using Bank Credit: Evidence from Greece *

Measuring Income Tax Evasion Using Bank Credit: Evidence from Greece *

Damaging democracy? Security provision and turnout in Afghan elections†

Fighting for Votes: Theory and Evidence on the Causes of Electoral Violence

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Damaging democracy? Security provision and turnout in Afghan elections^†