Direct Democracy and Resource Allocation : Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Beath, Andrew, Christia, Fotini, Enikolopov, Ruben
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier 2018
Subjects:
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
ELECTORAL SYSTEM
DIRECT DEMOCRACY
FIELD EXPERIMENT
CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
STAKEHOLDER INTERESTS
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29340
id okr-10986-29340
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-293402021-05-25T10:54:44Z Direct Democracy and Resource Allocation : Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan Beath, Andrew Christia, Fotini Enikolopov, Ruben POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS ELECTORAL SYSTEM DIRECT DEMOCRACY FIELD EXPERIMENT CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT STAKEHOLDER INTERESTS 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. 2018-02-08T17:29:13Z 2018-02-08T17:29:13Z 2017-01 Journal Article Journal of Development Economics 0304-3878 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29340 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research South Asia Afghanistan
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
topic POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
ELECTORAL SYSTEM
DIRECT DEMOCRACY
FIELD EXPERIMENT
CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
STAKEHOLDER INTERESTS
spellingShingle POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
ELECTORAL SYSTEM
DIRECT DEMOCRACY
FIELD EXPERIMENT
CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
STAKEHOLDER INTERESTS
Beath, Andrew
Christia, Fotini
Enikolopov, Ruben
Direct Democracy and Resource Allocation : Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan
geographic_facet South Asia
Afghanistan
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.
format Journal Article
author Beath, Andrew
Christia, Fotini
Enikolopov, Ruben
author_facet Beath, Andrew
Christia, Fotini
Enikolopov, Ruben
author_sort Beath, Andrew
title Direct Democracy and Resource Allocation : Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan
title_short 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_sort direct democracy and resource allocation : experimental evidence from afghanistan
publisher Elsevier
publishDate 2018
url http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29340
_version_ 1764469103510159360

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