Essays on political economy: theory, surveys, and experiments
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Abstract
In this dissertation, I present three distinct essays where I use online survey data and experiments to answer questions in political economy. Factors such as perceptions, expectations, beliefs, and policy preferences are critical determinants of social, economic, and political outcomes. As these factors are unobservable, surveys are an essential approach for eliciting them. By relying on well-designed surveys and experiments, I shed light on the role that perceptions and expectations play in shaping institutional and policy preferences.In Chapter 1, I study how shocks to economic expectations induced by elections contribute to democratic discontent in polarized societies. Using new large-scale survey data collected throughout the 2022 Brazilian presidential election, I show that highly polarized voters who assign a large probability to their candidate’s victory experience a larger negative shock to their economic expectations in case their candidate loses. As predicted by a stylized model, this expectation shock then leads to an increase in violent and anti-democratic sentiments, an effect that is particularly strong among the most extreme supporters. In an additional survey experiment, I provide complimentary evidence in which I positively update respondents’ expectations about the economy and find that this information treatment reduces their violent and anti-democratic sentiments.
In Chapter 2, joint work with Alberto Alesina and Stefanie Stantcheva, we investigate, using new large-scale survey and experimental data, how respondents perceive racial inequities between Black and white Americans, what they believe causes them, and what interventions they think should be implemented to reduce them. We document a stark partisan gap among white respondents, particularly in the perceived causes of racial inequities and what should be done about them. White Democrats and Black respondents are much more likely to attribute racial inequities to adverse past and present circumstances and want to act on them with race-targeted and general redistribution policies. White Republicans are more likely to attribute racial gaps to individual actions. A policy decomposition shows that the perceived causes of racial inequities correlate most strongly with support for race-targeted or general redistribution policies, a finding confirmed by the experimental results.
In Chapter 3, joint work with Raymond Fisman and Miriam Golden, we conduct parallel surveys of legislators and citizens in three countries to understand tolerance of corruption. In Colombia, Italy, and Pakistan, legislator and citizen respondents share similar views: both groups perceive corruption as prevalent and as undesirable. These novel descriptive data further reveal that political elites generally have accurate beliefs about public opinion on corruption and appreciate its policy-relevance. Overall, results suggest that barriers to effective anti-corruption policies do not lie with lack of information by legislators.
Description
2024
License
Attribution 4.0 International