Manipulation of Social Program Eligibility: Detection, Explanations and Consequences for Empirical Research

Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover

No 6211, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: We document manipulation of a targeting system which used a poverty index score to determine eligibility for social welfare programs in Colombia, including health insurance. We show strategic behavior in the timing of the household interviews around local elections, and direct manipulation when some households had their eligibility scores lowered. Initially the number of interviews increased around local elections. After the algorithm was made public to local officials, the score density exhibited a sharp discontinuity exactly at the eligibility threshold. The discontinuity at the threshold is larger where mayoral elections are more competitive; and smaller in municipalities with less competitive elections, more community organizations and higher newspaper circulation.

Keywords: Manipulation; Targeting; Local elections; Colombia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 I32 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56
Date: 2009-08-19
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/41002/dcede2009-19.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000089:006211

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Universidad De Los Andes-Cede ().