Replication Data for: Vote Buying and Local Public Goods Provision: Substitutes or Compliments?

We seek to better understand the demand side of vote buying: the conditions under which voters participate in, eschew, tolerate, or punish the exchange of targeted material benefits for votes. Specifically, we ask whether voters perceive contingent vote buying as substituting for local public goods provision in office, or whether they think that candidates who buy votes will also excel at securing local public goods. Voters who place great value on future public goods may opt out of vote buying if they believe the two are substitutes and also punish vote-buying candidates at the polls. We explore these issues in a nation-wide survey in Nepal. Multiple survey experiments provide evidence that Nepali voters perceive vote buying and local public goods provision as substitutes. Voters who hold this view also express a preference for candidates who do not engage in vote buying, implying they prioritize public goods provision, although this latter result is not causally identified.

本研究旨在更深入地解析选票买卖（vote buying）的需求维度：即选民参与、规避、容忍或惩处以特定物质利益交换选票之交易的情境条件。具体而言，我们探究两大核心议题：一是选民是否将有条件选票买卖（contingent vote buying）视作公职人员本地公共物品供给的替代方案；二是选民是否认为实施选票买卖的候选人同样能够出色地争取到本地公共物品。若选民高度重视未来公共物品供给，且认定二者存在替代关系，则可能拒绝参与选票买卖，并在选举中惩处实施选票买卖的候选人。我们通过尼泊尔全国性调查对上述问题展开实证研究，多项调查实验结果表明，尼泊尔选民将选票买卖与本地公共物品供给视为替代关系。持该观点的选民同时会更倾向于选择未参与选票买卖的候选人，这意味着他们将公共物品供给置于优先地位——不过这一后续结论尚未完成因果识别。