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The political economy of program enforcement : evidence from Brazil
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Brollo, Fernanda, Kaufmann, Katja and La Ferrara, Eliana (2020) The political economy of program enforcement : evidence from Brazil. Journal of the European Economic Association, 18 (2). pp. 750-791. doi:10.1093/jeea/jvz024 ISSN 1542-4766.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvz024
Abstract
Do politicians manipulate the enforcement of conditional welfare programs to in uence electoral outcomes? We study the Bolsa Familia Program (BFP) in Brazil, which provides a monthly stipend to poor families conditional on school attendance. Repeated failure to comply with this requirement results in increasing penalties. First, we exploit random variation in the timing when bene ciaries learn about penalties for noncompliance around the 2008 municipal elections. We find that the vote share of candidates aligned with the president is lower in zip codes where more bene ciaries received penalties shortly before (as opposed to shortly after) the elections. Second, we show that politicians strategically manipulate enforcement. Using a regression discontinuity design, we nd weaker enforcement before elections in municipalities where mayors from the presidential coalition can run for reelection. We provide evidence that manipulation occurs through misreporting school attendance, particularly in municipalities with a higher fraction of students in schools with politically connected principals.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of the European Economic Association | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 1542-4766 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | April 2020 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 18 | ||||||||
| Number: | 2 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 750-791 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1093/jeea/jvz024 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of the European Economic Association following peer review. The version of record Fernanda Brollo, Katja Kaufmann, Eliana La Ferrara, The Political Economy of Program Enforcement: Evidence from Brazil, Journal of the European Economic Association, , jvz024, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvz024 | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 4 December 2018 | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 10 June 2021 | ||||||||
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