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Salience and Accountability: School Infrastructureand Last-Minute Electoral Punishment

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  • Nicolas Ajzenman
  • Ruben Durante
Abstract
Can seemingly unimportant factors influence voting decisions by making certain issuessalient? We study this question in the context of Argentina 2015 presidential electionsby examining how the quality of the infrastructure of the school where citizens wereassigned to vote influenced their voting choice. Exploiting the quasi-random assignmentof voters to ballot stations located in different public schools in the city of BuenosAires, we find that individuals assigned to schools with poorer infrastructure weresignificantly less likely to vote for Mauricio Macri, the incumbent mayor then runningfor president. The effect is larger in low-income areas - where fewer people can affordprivate substitutes to public education - and in places where more households have children in school age. The effect is unlikely to be driven by information scarcity,since information on public school infrastructure was readily available to parents beforeelections. Rather, direct exposure to poor school infrastructure at the time of votingis likely to make public education - and the poor performance of the incumbent - moresalient.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Ajzenman & Ruben Durante, 2019. "Salience and Accountability: School Infrastructureand Last-Minute Electoral Punishment," School of Government Working Papers 201905, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    • Handle: RePEc:udt:wpgobi:201905
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    Cited by:

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    2. Ajzenman, Nicolás & Bertoni, Eleonora & Elacqua, Gregory & Marotta, Luana & Méndez, Carolina, 2020. "Altruism or Money?: Reducing Teacher Sorting Using Behavioral Strategies in Peru," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 10576, Inter-American Development Bank.
    3. Ajzenman, Nicolás & Elacqua, Gregory & Marotta, Luana & Westh Olsen, Anne Sofie, 2021. "Order Effects and Employment Decisions: Experimental Evidence from a Nationwide Program," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11541, Inter-American Development Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Elections; Salience; Electoral Punishment; Public Infrastructure; Education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General

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