Peer-reviewed article · 2015
Measuring Vote Selling: Field Evidence from the Philippines
Allen Hicken, Stephen Leider, Nico Ravanilla, and Dean Yang · American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 105(5): 352-56
In brief
A validated way to measure vote selling using vote switching, drawn from an anti-vote-buying field experiment in the Philippines.
Abstract
Using data from an anti-vote-buying field experiment we conducted in the Philippines, we report and validate a proxy measure for vote-selling. We demonstrate that our proxy measure, vote-switching, changes as expected with voter preferences and monetary offers from candidates. Voters are less likely to vote for someone different than their initial preference the larger the favorability rating difference between the preferred and alternative candidates. Similarly, vote-switching increases the more money the alternative candidate offers compared to the preferred candidates. We also describe the effects of the promise-based interventions on vote-switching, reported in full in a companion paper.
Research annotationQuestion, variables, design, findings, and mechanism at a glance▾
- Research question
- How can vote selling be measured when the behavior itself is unobservable?
- Independent variable (X)
- Candidate favorability differences and the size of monetary offers from candidates.
- Dependent variable (Y)
- Vote switching, proposed as a proxy measure for vote selling.
- Identification strategy
- Validation exercise within an anti-vote-buying field experiment in the Philippines, testing whether the proxy responds as theory predicts to preferences and prices.
- Main findings
- Voters are less likely to switch away from a preferred candidate the larger the favorability gap, and more likely to switch the more money an alternative candidate offers, in both cases as the theory of vote selling requires.
- Why it matters
- Supplies a validated, survey-implementable measure of a behavior that is otherwise hidden, usable by other researchers studying clientelism.
- Speaks to
- measurement of clientelismvote buyingsurvey methodology
Cite
@article{hicken2015voteselling,
title = {Measuring Vote Selling: Field Evidence from the Philippines},
author = {Allen Hicken and Stephen Leider and Nico Ravanilla and Dean Yang},
journal = {American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings},
year = {2015},
doi = {10.1257/aer.p20151033},
}