The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 102 No. 3 2020
Vote Buying or (Political) Business (Cycles) as Usual?
open access
Abstract
We report robust evidence of a new short-run monetary election cycle: the monthly growth rate of the money supply (M1) around elections is higher than in other months in a sample of low- and middle-income countries. We hypothesize this is related to systemic vote buying. Consistent with this, we find no cycle in authoritarian countries and countries with strong political institutions and a pronounced cycle in elections where international election monitors reported vote buying or in close elections. Using survey data on daily consumer expenditures, we show that within-household consumption of food increases in the days before elections.
- DOI
- 10.1162/rest_a_00820
- Volume
- 102
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 409-425
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex crossref