@article{Developing:3995,
      recid = {3995},
      author = {Gonzales Netto, Mariella},
      title = {Essays on Political Economy in Developing Countries},
      publisher = {The University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2022-06},
      pages = {201},
      abstract = {This dissertation studies politicians' and voters'  behavior. The first chapter studies whether politicians  strategically respond when confronted with potential  electoral backlash from increased transparency. I answer  this question using exogenous variation generated by  randomized audits to local governments in Brazil. I show  that the execution of an audit leads to an increase in the  number of public employees hired by the mayor. This effect  is greater in municipalities where auditors uncovered  higher levels of corruption. I find evidence consistent  with mayors hiring more employees as a form of patronage to  compensate for the loss of electoral support resulting from  the audit. I closely examine the education sector using  additional detailed data and find that hiring more school  employees does not improve student outcomes, revealing  limited direct consequences of audits on public goods  production. Moreover, I show that an audit increases the  share of payroll expenditures but decreases capital  investment and that this substitution translated into a  deterioration in the quality of school assets. These  results suggest that patronage enables politicians to  offset the potential electoral penalty of an audit by  hiring employees who do not contribute much to public goods  production.

In the second chapter, we study voters'  response to marginal changes to the fine for electoral  abstention in Peru, leveraging variation from a nationwide  reform. A smaller fine has a robust, negative effect on  voter turnout, partly through irregular changes in voter  registration. However, representation is largely  unaffected, as most of the lost votes are blank or invalid.  We also show that the effect of an exemption from  compulsory voting is substantially larger than that of a  full fine reduction, suggesting that non-monetary  incentives are the main drivers behind the effectiveness of  compulsory voting.

In the third chapter, I examine changes  in the Peru's two largest export products: copper and gold.  Using difference-in-differences estimators, I show that  higher levels of gold production increases (decreases) the  vote share for anti-mining (pro-mining) parties.  Conversely, an increase in copper production leads to a  close to zero—and not statistically significant—change in  the vote shares for anti- and pro-mining parties. Moreover,  I find evidence consistent with voters caring about the  environmental damage caused by gold production when casting  their vote and prioritizing this effect over improvements  in socioeconomic indicators. Overall, these findings  highlight that voters heavily weigh social considerations  compared to self-interest when deciding for whom to vote.     },
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/3995},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.3995},
}