No abstract

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.

Recent emphasis on credible causal designs has led to the expectation that scholars justify their research designs by testing the plausibility of their causal identification assumptions, often through balance and placebo tests. Yet current practice is to use statistical tests with an inappropriate null hypothesis of no difference, which can result in equating nonsignificant differences with significant homogeneity. Instead, we argue that researchers should begin with the initial hypothesis that the data are inconsistent with a valid research design, and provide sufficient statistical evidence in favor of a valid design. When tests are correctly specified so that difference is the null and equivalence is the alternative, the problems afflicting traditional tests are alleviated. We argue that equivalence tests are better able to incorporate substantive considerations about what constitutes good balance on covariates and placebo outcomes than traditional tests. We demonstrate these advantages with applications to natural experiments.

Voters may be unable to hold politicians to account if they lack basic information about their representatives’ performance. Civil society groups and international donors therefore advocate using voter information campaigns to improve democratic accountability. Yet, are these campaigns effective? Limited replication, measurement heterogeneity, and publication biases may undermine the reliability of published research. We implemented a new approach to cumulative learning, coordinating the design of seven randomized controlled trials to be fielded in six countries by independent research teams. Uncommon for multisite trials in the social sciences, we jointly preregistered a meta-analysis of results in advance of seeing the data. We find no evidence overall that typical, nonpartisan voter information campaigns shape voter behavior, although exploratory and subgroup analyses suggest conditions under which informational campaigns could be more effective. Such null estimated effects are too seldom published, yet they can be critical for scientific progress and cumulative, policy-relevant learning.