Measuring Vote-Selling: Field Evidence from the Philippines

Many developing democracies struggle with vote-buying and other forms of clientelism in electoral politics. Clientelism has been associated with reduced accountability and trust, increased corruption, and inefficient public administration (Stokes 2005; Desposato 2007; Keefer 2007; Kitschelt et al. 2010; Hicken and Simmons 2008; Hicken 2011; Stokes et al. 2013). In response, many government agencies and nongovernmental organizations have attempted to combat vote-buying, primarily by convincing voters not to sell their votes. Anti-vote-selling campaigns generally urge voters either to not accept money from candidates in the first place, or to “vote your conscience” despite taking money (Schaffer 2005). However, there is little work on whether such campaigns are effective at reducing vote-selling. We conducted a field experiment during the 2013 Philippine elections to test the effectiveness of interventions against vote-selling. A central challenge in assessing the impact of any anti-vote-selling effort, including ours, is creating a valid measure of vote-selling. Measuring