Working Paper: NBER ID: w22588
Authors: Sebastian Galiani; Nadya Hajj; Patrick J. McEwan; Pablo Ibarraran; Nandita Krishnaswamy
Abstract: In a Honduran field experiment, sequences of cash transfers to poor households varied in amount of the largest (“peak”) and last (“end”) transfers. Larger peak-end transfers increased voter turnout and the incumbent party’s vote share in the 2013 presidential election, independently of cumulative transfers. A plausible explanation is that voters succumbed to a common cognitive bias by applying peak-end heuristics. Another is that voters deliberately used peak-end transfers to update beliefs about the incumbent party. In either case, the results provide experimental evidence on the classic non-experimental finding that voters are especially sensitive to recent economic activity.
Keywords: voter behavior; cash transfers; conditional cash transfers; Honduras; behavioral economics
JEL Codes: H3; I38
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| cash transfer amounts (H87) | voter turnout (K16) |
| cash transfer amounts (H87) | incumbent party vote share (D79) |
| cct1 (Y20) | voter turnout (K16) |
| cct2 (C24) | voter turnout (K16) |
| cct1 (Y20) | incumbent party vote share (D79) |
| cct2 (C24) | incumbent party vote share (D79) |
| increase of 100 lempiras per registered voter (K16) | voter turnout (K16) |
| increase of 100 lempiras per registered voter (K16) | incumbent party vote share (D79) |