Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan
Direct democracy is designed to better align policy outcomes with citizen preferences. To test this proposition, we randomized whether 250 villages across Afghanistan selected projects by secret-ballot referenda or by consultation meetings. We find that referenda reduce the influence of local elites...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier BV
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127650 |
| _version_ | 1811086740770783232 |
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| author | Beath, Andrew Christia, Fotini Enikolopov, Ruben |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Beath, Andrew Christia, Fotini Enikolopov, Ruben |
| author_sort | Beath, Andrew |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Direct democracy is designed to better align policy outcomes with citizen preferences. To test this proposition, we randomized whether 250 villages across Afghanistan selected projects by secret-ballot referenda or by consultation meetings. We find that referenda reduce the influence of local elites over both project type and location. Consistent with previous experimental results, we also find that referenda improve villagers' perceptions of the local economy and of the quality of local governance. However, we find no systematic evidence that selecting projects via referenda increases the average impact of such projects. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:33:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/127650 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:33:58Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | Elsevier BV |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1276502022-10-01T15:43:50Z Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan Beath, Andrew Christia, Fotini Enikolopov, Ruben Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Direct democracy is designed to better align policy outcomes with citizen preferences. To test this proposition, we randomized whether 250 villages across Afghanistan selected projects by secret-ballot referenda or by consultation meetings. We find that referenda reduce the influence of local elites over both project type and location. Consistent with previous experimental results, we also find that referenda improve villagers' perceptions of the local economy and of the quality of local governance. However, we find no systematic evidence that selecting projects via referenda increases the average impact of such projects. Army Research Office (Award W911NF-12-1-0509) 2020-09-17T21:24:10Z 2020-09-17T21:24:10Z 2017-01 2016-10 2019-09-26T14:00:32Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0304-3878 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127650 Beath, Andrew et al. "Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan." Journal of Development Economics 124 (January 2017): 199-213 © 2016 Elsevier B.V. en http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.10.001 Journal of Development Economics Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier BV SSRN |
| spellingShingle | Beath, Andrew Christia, Fotini Enikolopov, Ruben Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan |
| title | Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan |
| title_full | Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan |
| title_fullStr | Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan |
| title_full_unstemmed | Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan |
| title_short | Direct democracy and resource allocation: Experimental evidence from Afghanistan |
| title_sort | direct democracy and resource allocation experimental evidence from afghanistan |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127650 |
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