Bobonis, Gertler, Gonzalez-Navarro, and Nichter (2022) conducts a randomized control trial in rural Northeast Brazil designed to reduce the vulnerability of sampled households. In this development intervention, we constructed residential water cisterns across 425 neighborhood clusters in 40...

The paper estimates the effect that changes in household vulnerability have on citizens' participation in clientelist relationships. The authors exploit two sources of variation in household vulnerability: rainfall shocks, and a randomized intervention that provided cisterns in drought-prone...

Bobonis, Gertler, Gonzalez-Navarro, and Nichter (2022) conducts a randomized control trial in rural Northeast Brazil designed to reduce the vulnerability of sampled households. In this development intervention, we constructed residential water cisterns across 425 neighborhood clusters in 40...

Political clientelism is often deemed to undermine democratic accountability and representation. This study argues that economic vulnerability causes citizens to participate in clientelism. We test this hypothesis with a randomized control trial that reduced household vulnerability through a...

Does combating corruption reduce clientelism? We examine the impact of a prominent anti-corruption program on clientelism using a novel representative survey of rural Brazilians. Randomized audits reduce politicians' provision of campaign handouts, decrease citizens' demands for private goods,...