Essays in development economics and political economy: electoral outcomes and local economic activities in Ghana & following politics in the media and voting: microeconomic evidence from 20 countries

Abstract

Electoral outcomes distort resource allocation from national governments to local governments. This distortion can be consequential on local economic activities. Focusing on close elections in Ghana, my first paper uses a regression discontinuity (RD) design to estimate the impact of a marginal victory by the president or an aligned parliamentarian on the constituency’s economic activities proxied by changes in nighttime lights. RD estimates show that constituencies that marginally elect aligned members of parliament belonging to the same party as the president see growth in night light over a three-year period. The results show that electing an aligned parliamentarian is crucial to getting more development into the local constituency. I do not find statistically significant robust effects for constituencies that marginally vote for the president. ☐ Are voters who follow political news in the media more likely to cast ballots in elections? My second paper answers this question through a study of the association between following politics in the media and the probability of casting a ballot using individual-level data from 20 countries. The results show that following politics in the media is associated with an increase in the probability of casting a ballot compared to the reference group of not following politics in the media at all. The probability estimates remain significant with inclusion of confounding variables though they are somewhat attenuated, suggesting a mild to a moderate yet statistically significant association between following politics in the media and the chance of casting a ballot.