Casey Katherine
Stanford Graduate School of Business, 655 Knight Way, Stanford, CA 94305.
Am Econ Rev. 2015 Aug;105(8):2410-2448. doi: 10.1257/aer.20130397.
Many lament that weak accountability and poor governance impede economic development in Africa. Politicians rely on ethnic allegiances that deliver the vote irrespective of performance, dampening electoral incentives. Giving voters information about candidate competence counters ethnic loyalty and strengthens accountability. I extend a canonical electoral model to show how information provision flows through voter behavior and ultimately impacts the distribution of political spending. I test the theory on data from Sierra Leone using decentralization and differential radio coverage to identify information's effects. Estimates suggest that information increases voting across ethnic-party lines and induces a more equitable allocation of campaign spending. (JEL D72, D83, J15, O17, Z13).
许多人哀叹，问责不力和治理不善阻碍了非洲的经济发展。政客们依赖族裔忠诚来获取选票，而不论其表现如何，这削弱了选举激励机制。向选民提供有关候选人能力的信息可以对抗族裔忠诚并加强问责制。我扩展了一个典型的选举模型，以展示信息提供如何通过选民行为流动，并最终影响政治支出的分配。我使用权力下放和不同的无线电覆盖范围来识别信息的影响，对来自塞拉利昂的数据进行理论检验。估计结果表明，信息增加了跨族裔政党界限的投票率，并促使竞选支出得到更公平的分配。（《经济学期刊分类号》D72、D83、J15、O17、Z13）
