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He Who Counts Elects: Economic Elites, Political Elites, and Electoral Fraud
Author(s) -
Chaves Isaías,
Fergusson Leopoldo,
Robinson James A.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
economics and politics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-0343
pISSN - 0954-1985
DOI - 10.1111/ecpo.12052
Subject(s) - presidential system , politics , state (computer science) , inequality , presidential election , political science , political economy , test (biology) , economics , public economics , law , computer science , mathematical analysis , mathematics , algorithm , paleontology , biology
What determines the extent of electoral fraud? This paper constructs a model of the tradeoff between fraud and policy concessions (public good provision) which also incorporates the strength of the state. In addition, we parameterize the extent to which economic elites (to whom fraud is costly) and political elites (to whom fraud is advantageous) “overlap.” The model predicts that fraud will be lower and public good provision higher when land inequality is higher, the overlap between elites lower, and the strength of the state higher. We test these predictions using a unique, municipal‐level dataset from Colombia's 1922 Presidential elections. We find empirical support for all the predictions of the model.