This paper explores the labor market returns to working on a victorious political campaign. Using unique administrative data from Brazil, we track the earnings and employment of campaign workers before and after close elections spanning nearly 20 years. We identify sizable returns to working for...

We study the prevalence and effects of individuals with past criminal charges among candidates and elected politicians in Brazil. Individuals with past criminal charges are twice as likely to both run for office and be elected compared to other individuals. This pattern persists across political...

We study the prevalence and effects of individuals with past criminal charges among candidates and elected politicians in Brazil. Individuals with past criminal charges are twice as likely to both run for office and be elected compared to other individuals. This pattern persists across political...

This study examines nepotism's direct and indirect effects on family firms, considering several critical factors mediating individual and organizational aspects. Specifically, on a sample of 387 family firms in the Middle East region, we investigate the mediating role of commitment, engagement...

This article explores the practice of "instructed voting" prevalent among rural Indigenous communities in Bolivia, referring to the taking of collective electoral decisions. It adds to the debate on clientelistic bloc voting by revealing voters' motives for participating in clientelistic deals,...

Using rural household survey data from West Bengal, we find that voters respond positively to excludable government welfare benefits but not to local public good programs, while reporting having benefited from both. Consistent with these voting patterns, shocks to electoral competition induced...

Amid Lebanon's multifaceted economic crisis, this paper explores the intricate dynamics between political patronage networks and financial stability. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of New Institutional Economics (NIE) and Project Management (PM), the study delves into how entrenched...

We study the prevalence and effects of individuals with past criminal charges among candidates and elected politicians in Brazil. Individuals with past criminal charges are twice as likely to both run for office and be elected compared to other individuals. This pattern persists across political...

We study the prevalence and effects of individuals with past criminal charges among candidates and elected politicians in Brazil. Individuals with past criminal charges are twice as likely to both run for office and be elected compared to other individuals. This pattern persists across political...

The relationship between intellectual capital and firm performance represents a critical facet of corporate governance, warranting comprehensive investigation. By analyzing data from 1151 non-financial firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange over the period from 2018 to 2022, the authors...

This study interrogates the theoretical and empirical validities of two dominant theories about Chinese state in the post-Mao period. The authors argue that the meritocratic view has under-theorized the innate contradiction between officials' personal competence and political loyalty. In order...

This paper explores the role of social status in relationships between richer and poorer households in non-lineage-based, agrarian communities by analysing who goes to whose funerals in six resettled Zimbabwean villages. Funerals allow social status to be observed because non-attendance is a...

This paper explores the labor market returns to working on a victorious political campaign. Using unique administrative data from Brazil, we track the earnings and employment of campaign workers before and after close elections spanning nearly 20 years. We identify sizable returns to working for...

We use a new machine learning-enabled, social network based measurement technique to assemble a novel dataset of firms' political connections in India. Leveraging this data along with a long panel of detailed financial transactions of firms, we study how political connections matter during an...

Using a hand-coded dataset tracking the backgrounds of U.S. governors between 1993 and 2021, we argue that officeholders with military experience are less likely to engage in political cronyism. Military governors are less likely to increase subsidies to corporations when they become “lame...

Skills utilization is an important factor affecting labor productivity and job satisfaction. This paper examines the effects of skills mismatch, nepotism, and gender discrimination on wages and job satisfaction in MENA workplaces. Gender discrimination implies social costs for firms due to...

Outsourcing public services to private providers is heralded for increasing government efficiency. Yet, outsourcing also offers opportunities to circumvent employment regulations in the public sector. The praised flexibility that private contractors have to hire employees can also be used to...

This paper provides a perspective on the political economy of crony capitalism and corruption in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, and Yemen, severely affected by the Arap Spring, to propose that they triggered the uprisings. The crony capitalism in Egypt shows military dominance and its...

Does higher office always lead to more favoritism? We argue that firms may lose their benefit from a connected politicians ascent to higher office, if it entails stricter scrutiny that may reduce favoritism. Around close Congress elections, we find RDD-based evidence of this adverse effect that...

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...