Priors rule: When do Malfeasance Revelations Help or Hurt Incumbent Parties?

Abstract

10587). Our pre-analysis plan was pre-registered with EGAP, and is publicly available at egap.org/registration/760. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Information Provision, Voter Coordination, and Electoral Accountability: Evidence from Mexican Social Networks

“…often neighbors, information diffusion across neighboring precincts could account for the lower effect of information provision in such precincts by reducing differences in behavior between them. However, Arias et al (2019) show that precincts that neighbor treated precincts do not exhibit any changes in voting behavior or a greater likelihood of recalling or acting on information provided to their neighbor. Another possibility is that the discussion of the information induced voters in more-connected networks to acquire further political information.…”

“…Various studies have shown that belief updating can drive voting behavior, including in the Mexican context that we study (Arias et al 2019). We instead focus on testing whether information provision can also generate voter coordination.…”

“…3 To empirically separate the coordination and diffusion mechanisms through which networks moderate the effects of information provision, we exploit an instance in which this particular condition holds and information was disseminated widely enough to feasibly coordinate voters. Specifically, we build on an experiment previously conducted by Arias et al (2019), which randomized the provision of audit report scorecards detailing misallocated municipal spending before the 2015 municipal elections in four Mexican states where voters believed incumbents to be highly malfeasant. They show that, on average, voters rewarded incumbent parties after receiving this information, and-consistent with belief updating in a context where voters already expected substantial incumbent malfeasance-rewarded the incumbent most where the reported malfeasance was lower than expected.…”

Making Policies Matter: Voter Responses to Campaign Promises

“…Work in the Philippines has already documented how mayors take advantage of voter ignorance: by claiming credit for central government projects (Labonne, 2013;Cruz and Schneider, 2017), or by ramping up visible infrastructure projects before the elections (Labonne, 2016). Important work has examined the effects on voter behavior of information on politician performance, attributes and campaign activities, though not campaign promises (Ferraz and Finan, 2008;Chong et al, 2015;Humphreys and Weinstein, 2013;Larreguy et al, 2015;Bidwell et al, 2015;Banerjee et al, 2018;Arias et al, 2018;Dunning et al, forthcoming). Other studies focus on direct appeals to reduce clientelism and vote buying (Vicente, 2014;Hicken et al, 2015).…”

Voting corrupt politicians out of office? Evidence from a survey experiment in Paraguay

“…Chong, De La O, Karlan, and Wantchekon (2014) provide experimental evidence during local elections in Mexico that information decreases incumbent party support but also decreases voter turnout and support for a challenger party. Arias, Larreguy, Marshall, and Querubin (2018) argue that whether voters punish politicians when learning new information on wrongdoings depends on their prior beliefs and how they are updated.…”