Working Paper: NBER ID: w14702
Authors: Marco Manacorda; Edward Miguel; Andrea Vigorito
Abstract: We estimate the impact of a large anti-poverty cash transfer program, the Uruguayan PANES, on political support for the government that implemented it. Using the discontinuity in program assignment based on a pre-treatment eligibility score, we find that beneficiary households are 11 to 14 percentage points more likely to favor the current government relative to the previous government. Political support effects persist after the program ends. A calibration exercise indicates that these persistent impacts are consistent with a model of rational but poorly informed voters learning about politicians' redistributive preferences.
Keywords: cash transfers; political support; voter behavior; Uruguay; PANES
JEL Codes: D72; H53; O12; O23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| PANES program eligibility (H53) | beneficiaries of the PANES program (H55) |
| beneficiaries of the PANES program (H55) | political support for the government (H11) |
| political support for the government (H11) | expressed political preferences (D72) |
| PANES program (H53) | political support for the government (H11) |