Research
Working Papers
"Plata y Plomo: How Higher Salaries Expose Politicians to Criminal Violence" (with Massimo Pulejo) [Download PDF]
Adequate wages are an important tool to shield public officials from special interests and corruption. But what is the equilibrium effect of higher wages in the presence of criminal pressure groups, who use both bribes and violence? By means of a regression discontinuity design, we show that an increase in the remuneration of Italian municipal cabinets triggers a sizable and significant increase in criminal attacks against their members. We argue that this is triggered by higher-paid officials' lower likelihood of catering to criminal interests. In particular, we show that better-paid politicians are significantly more likely to prevent corruption in public procurement, a key area of illicit interactions between the state and criminal organizations. Additional analyses reveal that the disciplining effect of wages is driven by a change in incumbents' behavior rather than improved selection. These findings reveal how -- in the presence of criminal groups -- higher wages may limit corruption, but also foster the use of violence as an alternative tool to influence policymaking.
"Does the Content and Mode of Delivery of Information Matter for Political Accountability? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Mexico" (with Eric Arias, Horacio Larreguy and John Marshall) [Download PDF]
Information pertaining to incumbent performance can play a central role in electoral accountability. In light of mixed findings, we examine the extent to which performance benchmarks and common knowledge moderate the effects of information dissemination. These theoretical mechanisms are tested in the context of a field experiment providing voters with audit reports documenting mayoral malfeasance before the 2015 Mexican municipal elections. We find that neither benchmarking against the performance of mayors from other parties within the state nor accompanying leaflet delivery with loudspeakers announcing the leaflets' delivery within the community significantly altered the effect of information on incumbent party vote share. The ineffectiveness of benchmarking reflects voters not updating their beliefs from the benchmark, while the loudspeaker created common knowledge without facilitating coordination.
"Political Reform and Elite Persistence: Term Limits and Political Dynasties in the Philippines" [Download PDF]
Research in political economy emphasizes the tendency of elites to persist and reproduce their power over time, potentially undermining the effectiveness of institutional reforms. One particular form of elite persistence is illustrated by the existence of political dynasties. A natural question is whether certain political reforms can break dynastic patterns and open up the political system. In this paper I study the extent to which the introduction of term limits by the 1987 Philippine Constitution effectively broke the hold of incumbent families on power. The ability of term limits to dismantle political dynasties is not obvious, as term-limited incumbents may be replaced by relatives or may run for a different elected office. Whether these strategies undermine the direct effects of term-limits in reducing the time an individual can hold office is an empirical question. I find no evidence of a statistically significant impact of term limits on curbing families' persistence in power. Moreover, term limits deter high-quality challengers from running prior to the expiration of an incumbent's term. Challengers prefer to wait for the incumbent to be termed-out and run in an open-seat race. As a consequence, incumbents are safer in their early terms prior to the limit. These results suggest that political reforms that do not modify the underlying sources of dynastic power may be ineffective in changing the political equilibrium.
Media Coverage: The Guardian
Work in Progress
"Foundational Elites, Family Structure and Democracy in Argentina" (with Julien Labonne, Sebastian Saiegh and Shanker Satyanath)
"Family Networks and Political Coalitions in the Philippines" (with Cesi Cruz, Julien Labonne and Francesco Trebbi)
"The Political Economy of Human Trafficking" (with Kim Singer Babiarz, Rafael Ch Duran and Grant Miller)
Books
Economía Política de la Política Económica (with Leopoldo Fergusson), Ediciones Uniandes, 2018. This is an introductory-level textbook, in Spanish, to applied political economy models.
You can buy the paperback here.
E-book (all platforms) here.
E-book (Apple Books) here.
You can also find additional resources to accompany the book here.
Published Articles/Book Chapters
"American Stories: A Large-Scale Structured Text Dataset of Historical U.S. Newspapers" (with Melissa Dell, Jacob Carlson, Tom Bryan, Emily Silcock, Abhishek Arora, Zejiang Shen, Luca D’Amico-Wong, Quan Le, and Leander Heldring), NeurIPS (Benchmarks and Datasets Track), forthcoming. [Download PDF] [Dataset] [Github - contains demo notebooks]
"Prior's Rule: When Do Malfeasance Revelations Help or Hurt Incumbent Parties?" (with Eric Arias, Horacio Larreguy and John Marshall), Journal of the European Economic Association, 20(4), 2022 [Download PDF]
"Electoral Concerns Reduce Restrictive Measures During the COVID-19 Pandemic" (with Massimo Pulejo), Journal of Public Economics, 198, June, 2021 [Download PDF]
"The Impact of Emergency Cash Assistance in a Pandemic: Experimental Evidence from Colombia" (with Juliana Londoño-Velez), The Review of Economics and Statistics, 104(1), pp. 157-165, 2022 [Download PDF] [Report in Spanish], IPA Project Summary, IPA Webinar, Media Coverage: Dinero, La República
"Persistent Failure? International Interventions Since World War II" (with Matt Malis and Shanker Satyanath), Handbook of Historical Economics, 2021. [Download PDF]
"Political Dynasties, Term Limits and Female Political Empowerment: Evidence from the Philippines" (with Julien Labonne and Sahar Parsa), Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 182, pp. 212-228, 2021 [Download PDF]
"Social Network Structures and the Politics of Public Goods Provision: Evidence from the Philippines" (with Cesi Cruz and Julien Labonne), American Political Science Review, 114(2), May, 2020. [Download PDF]
"The Real Winner's Curse" (with Leopoldo Fergusson, Nelson Ruiz and Juan F. Vargas), American Journal of Political Science, 65(1), 2021. [Download PDF] [Online Appendix]
“When Does Information Increase Electoral Accountability? Lessons from a Field Experiment In Mexico" (with Eric Arias, Horacio Larreguy and John Marshall) in Dunning, T., G. Grossman, M. Humphreys, S. Hyde, and C. McIntosh, Eds. Information, Accountability, and Cumulative Learning: Lessons from Metaketa I, forthcoming, Cambridge University Press)
"Voter Information Campaigns and Political Accountability: Cumulative Findings from a Preregistered Meta-Analysis of Coordinated Trials" (with Thad Dunning and many other authors), Science Advances, July, 2019. [Download PDF]
"The Political Class and Redistributive Policies" (with Alejandro Corvalán and Sergio Vicente), Journal of the European Economic Association, 48(1), February, 2020. [Download PDF]
"How Social Networks Help Voters Coordinate around Information Provision to Improve Electoral Accountability: Evidence from Mexico" (with Eric Arias, Pablo Balán, Horacio Larreguy and John Marshall), American Political Science Review, 113(2), pp. 475-498, 2019. [Download PDF]
"The Historical State, Local Collective Action and Economic Development in Vietnam" (with Melissa Dell and Nathan Lane), Econometrica, 86(6), pp. 2083-2121, 2018. [Download PDF] [Online Appendix] Featured in VoxDev.
"Nation Building Through Foreign Intervention: Evidence from Discontinuities in Military Strategies" (with Melissa Dell), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 133(2), pp. 701-764, 2018. [Download PDF] [Online Appendix]. Featured in VoxEU and Nature.
"Political Brokers: Partisans or Agents? Evidence from the Mexican Teacher's Union" (with Horacio Larreguy and Cesar Montiel), American Journal of Political Science, 61(4), pp. 877-891, 2017. [Download PDF].
"Politician Family Networks and Electoral Outcomes: Evidence from the Philippines" (with Cesi Cruz and Julien Labonne), American Economic Review, 107(10), pp. 3006-3037, 2017. [Download PDF] [Online Appendix]
"Family and Politics: Dynastic Persistence in the Philippines", Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 11(2), pp. 151-181, 2016. [Download PDF] [Online Appendix]
"Parties, Brokers, and Voter Mobilization: How Turnout Buying Depends Upon the Party’s Capacity to Monitor Brokers" (with Horacio Larreguy and John Marshall) American Political Science Review, 110(1), pp. 160-179, 2016. [Download PDF] [Online Appendix]
"The Control of Politicians in Normal Times and Times of Crisis: Wealth Accumulation by U.S. Congressmen, 1850-1880" (with James M. Snyder, Jr.) Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 8(4), pp. 409-450, 2013. [Download PDF] [Online Appendix]
“The Desire to Return during Civil War: Evidence for Internally Displaced Populations in Colombia” (with Ma. Alejandra Arias and Ana María Ibáñez), Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, 20(1), p. 209-233, 2014. [Download PDF]
“The Returns to U.S. Congressional Seats in the mid-19th Century” (with James M. Snyder, Jr.) in Aragones, E., Bevia, C., Llavador, H., Schofield, N., Eds. The Political Economy of Democracy, BBVA, Barcelona, 2009. [Download PDF]
“When Does Policy Reform Work? The case of Central Bank Independence” (with Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson), Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Spring 2008): 351-421 [Download PDF] [Data]
“Economic and Political Inequality in Development: the case of Cundinamarca, Colombia” (with Daron Acemoglu, Maria Angelica Bautista and James A. Robinson) in Elhanan Helpman, ed Institutions and Economic Performance, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008 [Download PDF]