A current version of each of the following papers is available upon request. Please feel free to contact me via email if you are interested.
This paper presents a theoretical exploration into why and under what conditions politicians align with wealthy elite groups, often at the expense of broader public welfare, in the pursuit of electoral power. While supporting elite interests through political patronage can be costly, an alternative approach could involve favoring the broader public to gain more votes and reduce dependency on the elite. To investigate this dilemma, I construct a formal model of electoral competition wherein incumbents choose between self-reliant strategies or establishing a patronage system with a small, influential elite segment. In this model, elite support - comprising campaign contributions, biased media, and endorsements among others - is exchanged for a share of state resources, enhancing the incumbent’s chances of victory but reducing the resources available for the incumbent’s appropriation after the election. In the static model, two scenarios emerge based on the influence and demands of the elite. In cases of limited elite influence and modest expected payback, incumbents - regardless of their public support - avoid establishing a costly patronage system. However, when elite influence is high and expected payback is substantial, incumbents with low public support find it optimal to rely on elite support to boost their chances, while those with high support refrain, as the benefits of patronage do not justify its cost. The model is then extended to a dynamic game, where forward-looking incumbents, regardless of initial support levels, consistently opt for patronage as a strategy to secure prolonged tenure. In a further extension, where voters may be either informed (voting based on policy platforms) or uninformed (swayed by elite influence), the model predicts a higher likelihood of patronage when a significant share of voters is uninformed. The predictions of this model find empirical relevance in cases such as the regimes of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin in Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary, where patronage systems have played a crucial role in maintaining political power.
This paper examines Political Budget Cycles in federal systems, focusing on how a central incumbent allocates discretionary transfers across states in response to electoral incentives. We develop a theoretical model predicting that average discretionary transfers increase during federal election periods. While swing states consistently receive higher discretionary transfers due to their electoral competitiveness, the election-period increase is larger for non-swing states. The intuition is that swing states are consistently targeted throughout the electoral cycle, while non-swing states become pivotal during federal elections to secure a national majority. To test these predictions, we compile a panel dataset of Indian states from 2006 to 2022. Using fixed effects specifications, we find evidence consistent with the theoretical model: discretionary transfers are significantly higher in federal election periods, swing states receive more discretionary transfers in non-election periods, and the election-period increase in discretionary transfers is more pronounced for non-swing states.
This study explores the interplay between political favoritism, international peacekeeping operations and the spatial dynamics of terrorism. Leveraging a novel geocoded dataset covering Africa from 1970 to 2022, we examine how the geographical proximity of ministers’ birthplaces shapes the distribution of terrorist activity. Employing a pseudo-Poisson maximum likelihood regression framework with high-dimensional fixed effects, our analysis reveals that regions closer to a minister’s birthplace benefit from prioritized resource allocation and experience fewer terrorist attacks, underscoring the pervasive influence of political favoritism on security outcomes. In contrast, distant regions face heightened vulnerability, particularly when United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKOs) are present. While UNPKOs aim to stabilize conflict zones, their deployment often attracts terrorist activity to neglected areas, exacerbating existing disparities. These robust findings highlight the critical need for equitable resource allocation and integrated approaches that harmonize domestic governance reforms with international peacekeeping efforts.