We exploit new experimental and quasi-experimental data to investigate voters' intrinsic moti... more We exploit new experimental and quasi-experimental data to investigate voters' intrinsic motivation to engage politically. Does having the right to vote increase engagement or, given significant incentives to free ride, do eligible voters remain rationally unengaged? Does knowledge that ones group is pivotal reduce free riding? And are the politically engaged influenced by election-relevant policy information in the run-up to a major election? To address these questions, we fielded an original survey of 5,400 Mexican high school seniors just prior to the historic 2018 general election. Age-based regression discontinuity results show that the just-eligible score higher on measures of low-cost political engagement compared to the just-ineligible. A first survey experiment reveals that information that the youth vote will be pivotal increases the eligible respondents' interest in the presidential debate and in the election result. In the second experiment, information about cur...
Why do individuals preferences for redistribution often diverge widely from their material self-i... more Why do individuals preferences for redistribution often diverge widely from their material self-interest? Using an original online survey experiment spanning eight countries and 12,000 respondents across Latin America, one of the most unequal regions in the world, we find significant evidence for an under-explored explanation: misconceptions regarding the distributional effects of current tax policy. Treated respondents who are informed that an increase in the value added tax (VAT) is regressive are significantly more likely to prefer policy reforms that make the tax more progressive. Treatment effects are driven by the large fraction of respondents who underestimate the regressivity of the VAT, even though their misperceptions are linked to fundamental views about the world. These respondents are disproportionately right-leaning and more likely to attribute success to individual effort than luck. Despite the deep-rooted nature of respondents misperceptions, treatment effects are la...
Theory suggests that employee trust is key to productivity in organizations, but empirical eviden... more Theory suggests that employee trust is key to productivity in organizations, but empirical evidence documenting links between trust and constraints on performance is scarce. This paper analyzes self-collected data on public sector employees from eighteen Latin American countries and finds that individual-level trust is relevant to three types of performance factors. First, high-trust employees are more willing to collaborate and share information with coworkers and are more supportive of technological innovation. Second, high-trust respondents have different perceptions of organizational constraints: they are less concerned with low staff quality or lack of discretion to innovate, and more concerned with staff shortages. Third, trust in coworkers is associated with stronger mission motivation. Instrumental variable strategies based on the transmission of trust through social and professional channels account for potential sources of endogeneity. A survey experiment on preferences fo...
We argue that a key difference among non-democracies is the extent to which autocratic leaders cr... more We argue that a key difference among non-democracies is the extent to which autocratic leaders create institutionalized ruling parties as a way of making credible commitments to investors. We show that to be effective in this role, institutionalized ruling parties must satisfy two constraints. The expropriation constraint requires that the autocrat prefer to only partially expropriate party members and avoid collective action, rather than to expropriate all party members; this implies that parties must be small enough for full expropriation to be unattractive. The investment constraint requires that party members prefer to invest; this implies that parties be large enough that expropriation is an unlikely event for any party member. The conditions for these constraints to hold, and for the autocrat to prefer creating an institutionalized ruling party, help to explain variation in political institutions and economic performance in non-democracies.
We exploit new experimental and quasi-experimental data to investigate voters' intrinsic moti... more We exploit new experimental and quasi-experimental data to investigate voters' intrinsic motivation to engage politically. Does having the right to vote increase engagement or, given significant incentives to free ride, do eligible voters remain rationally unengaged? Does knowledge that ones group is pivotal reduce free riding? And are the politically engaged influenced by election-relevant policy information in the run-up to a major election? To address these questions, we fielded an original survey of 5,400 Mexican high school seniors just prior to the historic 2018 general election. Age-based regression discontinuity results show that the just-eligible score higher on measures of low-cost political engagement compared to the just-ineligible. A first survey experiment reveals that information that the youth vote will be pivotal increases the eligible respondents' interest in the presidential debate and in the election result. In the second experiment, information about cur...
Why do individuals preferences for redistribution often diverge widely from their material self-i... more Why do individuals preferences for redistribution often diverge widely from their material self-interest? Using an original online survey experiment spanning eight countries and 12,000 respondents across Latin America, one of the most unequal regions in the world, we find significant evidence for an under-explored explanation: misconceptions regarding the distributional effects of current tax policy. Treated respondents who are informed that an increase in the value added tax (VAT) is regressive are significantly more likely to prefer policy reforms that make the tax more progressive. Treatment effects are driven by the large fraction of respondents who underestimate the regressivity of the VAT, even though their misperceptions are linked to fundamental views about the world. These respondents are disproportionately right-leaning and more likely to attribute success to individual effort than luck. Despite the deep-rooted nature of respondents misperceptions, treatment effects are la...
Theory suggests that employee trust is key to productivity in organizations, but empirical eviden... more Theory suggests that employee trust is key to productivity in organizations, but empirical evidence documenting links between trust and constraints on performance is scarce. This paper analyzes self-collected data on public sector employees from eighteen Latin American countries and finds that individual-level trust is relevant to three types of performance factors. First, high-trust employees are more willing to collaborate and share information with coworkers and are more supportive of technological innovation. Second, high-trust respondents have different perceptions of organizational constraints: they are less concerned with low staff quality or lack of discretion to innovate, and more concerned with staff shortages. Third, trust in coworkers is associated with stronger mission motivation. Instrumental variable strategies based on the transmission of trust through social and professional channels account for potential sources of endogeneity. A survey experiment on preferences fo...
We argue that a key difference among non-democracies is the extent to which autocratic leaders cr... more We argue that a key difference among non-democracies is the extent to which autocratic leaders create institutionalized ruling parties as a way of making credible commitments to investors. We show that to be effective in this role, institutionalized ruling parties must satisfy two constraints. The expropriation constraint requires that the autocrat prefer to only partially expropriate party members and avoid collective action, rather than to expropriate all party members; this implies that parties must be small enough for full expropriation to be unattractive. The investment constraint requires that party members prefer to invest; this implies that parties be large enough that expropriation is an unlikely event for any party member. The conditions for these constraints to hold, and for the autocrat to prefer creating an institutionalized ruling party, help to explain variation in political institutions and economic performance in non-democracies.
Uploads
Papers by Philip Keefer