Working Paper: NBER ID: w14123
Authors: Benjamin A. Olken
Abstract: This paper presents an experiment where 48 Indonesian villages were randomly assigned to choose development projects through either representative-based meetings or direct election-based plebiscites. Plebiscites resulted in dramatically higher satisfaction among villagers, increased knowledge about the project, greater perceived benefits, and higher reported willingness to contribute. Changing the political mechanism had much smaller effects on the actual projects selected, with some evidence that plebiscites resulted in projects chosen by women being located in poorer areas. The results show that direct participation in political decision making can substantially increase satisfaction and legitimacy, even when it has little effect on actual decisions.
Keywords: Direct Democracy; Local Public Goods; Field Experiment; Indonesia
JEL Codes: D72
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| plebiscites (D72) | citizen satisfaction (I31) |
| plebiscites (D72) | legitimacy perceptions (P37) |
| plebiscites (D72) | project selection (O22) |
| plebiscites (D72) | women's projects in poorer hamlets (F63) |
| plebiscites (D72) | elite preferences in project selection (D79) |
| plebiscites (D72) | perceived fairness in decision-making (D70) |