Publications
"Transparency, Elections, and Pakistani Politicians' Tax Compliance" (Comparative Political Studies)
A growing literature on political accountability focuses on the extent to which voters electorally punish politicians when provided with credible negative information about politicians’ actions. Whether politicians respond to information provision by changing their behavior---thus appearing accountable to voters---is an integral part of this puzzle but has received comparatively little attention. I address this gap by exploiting an unforeseen decision by the Pakistani government to publicly release legislators' past income tax payments, and measure the effect of the information provision on their tax payments in the following year. Using new data on politicians' asset ownership and tax payments in a difference-in-differences research design, I provide strong evidence that the pressure to decrease tax evasion was highest for competitively and directly elected legislators. These heterogeneous effects are not explained by differences between legislators or electoral constituencies, supporting the hypothesis that electoral incentives condition legislator responsiveness to information shocks.
"(A)political Constituency Development Funds: Evidence from Pakistan" (Pre-print at the British Journal of Political Science)
Most of the distributive politics literature focuses on how incumbent politicians allocate development resources in the absence of spending rules, and on the politicization of rules when they do determine distribution. What is less clear is whether politically-neutral spending rules lead to neutral spending. Using new data on a long-running federal development fund and elections from Pakistan in a regression discontinuity design, I show strong evidence that the ruling party manipulated fund distribution to disproportionately benefit its co-partisans and punish the weakest opposition. Considering various factors, partisan bias is the most plausible explanation. These findings are important not only because the purpose of rules-based funds is to prevent politicized distribution but also because they have implications for development patterns and for using such funds to address questions about legislator effort and patronage patterns within constituencies, which requires assuming that legislators do receive their share of funds in the first place.
"Corporate Influence in World Bank Lending" (with Randall W. Stone) The Journal of Politics (2018)
The World Bank withholds loan disbursements in order to build a reputation for enforcing conditionality, and multinational firms lobby for these funds to be released. Using data drawn from World Bank reports, we find evidence that (1) participation by Fortune 500 multinational corporations as project contractors and (2) investments by these firms are associated with disbursements that are unjustified by project performance. In addition, these measures of corporate interest are associated with inflated project evaluations. These effects are limited to MNCs headquartered in the United States or Japan, suggesting that the influence of private actors depends on access to particular national policy networks. In contrast to the evidence of corporate influence, we find no consistent evidence of geopolitical influences.
Work-in-Progress
"Lesser of Two Evils: Allocating Resources to Core and Swing Districts in Pakistan" (Available upon request.)
"Are Goodwill Ambassadors Good for Business? The Impact of Celebrities on IO fundraising" (with Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir; Available upon request.)
"Do Voters (Dis)like Dynastic Candidates? Experimental Evidence from Pakistan" (with Sergio Ascencio)
"Reviews, Ratings and Resilience: The Promises and Perils of Revealing Labor Migrant, Job Agent, and Recruitment Firm Networks" (with Daniel Karell) Project funded by a $200,000 grant from REALM (Research & Empirical Analysis of Labor Migration) at Columbia University.
"A Booth of One's Own: Pakistani Elections and the Effectiveness of Female-Only Polling Stations" (with J. Andrew Harris)
"Transparency, Elections, and Pakistani Politicians' Tax Compliance" (Comparative Political Studies)
A growing literature on political accountability focuses on the extent to which voters electorally punish politicians when provided with credible negative information about politicians’ actions. Whether politicians respond to information provision by changing their behavior---thus appearing accountable to voters---is an integral part of this puzzle but has received comparatively little attention. I address this gap by exploiting an unforeseen decision by the Pakistani government to publicly release legislators' past income tax payments, and measure the effect of the information provision on their tax payments in the following year. Using new data on politicians' asset ownership and tax payments in a difference-in-differences research design, I provide strong evidence that the pressure to decrease tax evasion was highest for competitively and directly elected legislators. These heterogeneous effects are not explained by differences between legislators or electoral constituencies, supporting the hypothesis that electoral incentives condition legislator responsiveness to information shocks.
"(A)political Constituency Development Funds: Evidence from Pakistan" (Pre-print at the British Journal of Political Science)
Most of the distributive politics literature focuses on how incumbent politicians allocate development resources in the absence of spending rules, and on the politicization of rules when they do determine distribution. What is less clear is whether politically-neutral spending rules lead to neutral spending. Using new data on a long-running federal development fund and elections from Pakistan in a regression discontinuity design, I show strong evidence that the ruling party manipulated fund distribution to disproportionately benefit its co-partisans and punish the weakest opposition. Considering various factors, partisan bias is the most plausible explanation. These findings are important not only because the purpose of rules-based funds is to prevent politicized distribution but also because they have implications for development patterns and for using such funds to address questions about legislator effort and patronage patterns within constituencies, which requires assuming that legislators do receive their share of funds in the first place.
"Corporate Influence in World Bank Lending" (with Randall W. Stone) The Journal of Politics (2018)
The World Bank withholds loan disbursements in order to build a reputation for enforcing conditionality, and multinational firms lobby for these funds to be released. Using data drawn from World Bank reports, we find evidence that (1) participation by Fortune 500 multinational corporations as project contractors and (2) investments by these firms are associated with disbursements that are unjustified by project performance. In addition, these measures of corporate interest are associated with inflated project evaluations. These effects are limited to MNCs headquartered in the United States or Japan, suggesting that the influence of private actors depends on access to particular national policy networks. In contrast to the evidence of corporate influence, we find no consistent evidence of geopolitical influences.
Work-in-Progress
"Lesser of Two Evils: Allocating Resources to Core and Swing Districts in Pakistan" (Available upon request.)
"Are Goodwill Ambassadors Good for Business? The Impact of Celebrities on IO fundraising" (with Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir; Available upon request.)
"Do Voters (Dis)like Dynastic Candidates? Experimental Evidence from Pakistan" (with Sergio Ascencio)
"Reviews, Ratings and Resilience: The Promises and Perils of Revealing Labor Migrant, Job Agent, and Recruitment Firm Networks" (with Daniel Karell) Project funded by a $200,000 grant from REALM (Research & Empirical Analysis of Labor Migration) at Columbia University.
"A Booth of One's Own: Pakistani Elections and the Effectiveness of Female-Only Polling Stations" (with J. Andrew Harris)
