Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan
Name
Fotini_Direct democracy.pdf
Description
Submitted version
Size
1.58 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7a3c5717c4b9a5af2f49da1779e97ae1
Author(s)
Beath, Andrew
Christia, Fotini
Enikolopov, Ruben
Date Issued
January 2017
Journal
Journal of Development Economics
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Beath, Andrew et al. "Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan." Journal of Development Economics 124 (January 2017): 199-213 © 2016 Elsevier B.V.
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
Direct democracy is designed to better align policy outcomes with citizen preferences. To test this proposition, we randomized whether 250 villages across Afghanistan selected projects by secret-ballot referenda or by consultation meetings. We find that referenda reduce the influence of local elites over both project type and location. Consistent with previous experimental results, we also find that referenda improve villagers' perceptions of the local economy and of the quality of local governance. However, we find no systematic evidence that selecting projects via referenda increases the average impact of such projects.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.10.001
