Temptation in vote-selling: Evidence from a field experiment in the Philippines

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. An electronic version of the paper may be downloaded Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may• from the SSRN website:www. SSRN.com • from the RePEc website:www. RePEc.org • from the CESifo website:T www. CESifo-group.org/wpT CESifo Working Paper No. 4828 Temptation in Vote-Selling: Evidence from a Field Experiment in the Philippines AbstractWe test the predictions of a behavioral model of transactional electoral politics in the context of a randomized anti-vote-selling intervention in the Philippines. We model selling one's vote as a temptation good: it creates positive utility for the future self at the moment of voting, but not for past selves who anticipate the vote-sale. We also allow keeping or breaking promises regarding vote-selling to affect utility. Voters who are at least partially sophisticated about their vote-selling temptation can thus use promises not to vote-sell as a commitment device. An invitation to promise not to vote-sell is taken up by a majority of respondents, reduces vote-selling, and has a larger effect in electoral races with smaller vote-buying payments. The more effective promise treatment reduces vote-selling in the smallest-stakes election by 10.9 percentage points. Inviting voters to make another type of promise -to accept vote-buying payments, but to nonetheless "vote your conscience" -is significantly less effective. The results are consistent with voters being partially (but not fully) sophisticated about their voteselling temptation.JEL-Code: D030, D720, O120.Keywords: vote-selling, vote-buying, temptation, self-control, commitment, elections, political economy, Philippines. We thank Joma Gonzalez (Innovations for Poverty Action) for unparalleled field management, Vibha Mehta for her contributions to the field work and analysis, and seminar participants at Georgia Institute of Technology, Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, the World Bank, and Georgetown University. This study was made possible by funding from the MCubed program at the University of Michigan. 1 Allen Hicken Department of Political IntroductionVote-buying and vote-selling are pervasive phenomena in many developing democracies. While there is some debate about the consequences of the buying and selling of votes, there is a consensus that transactional electoral politics brings with it a host of costs. For example, vote-buying and other forms of clientelism can undermine or even reverse the standard accountability relations...

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