Voter Response to Peak and End Transfers: Evidence from a Conditional Cash Transfer Experiment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Galiani, Sebastian; Hajj, Nadya; McEwan, Patrick J.; Ibarraran, Pablo; Krishnaswamy, Nandita
• 署名单位: University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; Wellesley College; Inter-American Development Bank; University of Southern California
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20170448
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 232-260
• 关键词: retrospective evaluations; duration neglect; HEALTH; education; Honduras; clientelism; time

摘要

In a Honduran field experiment, sequences of cash transfers to poor households varied in amount of the largest (peak) and last (end) transfers. Larger peak-end transfers increased voter turnout and the incumbent party's vote share in the 2013 presidential election, independently of cumulative transfers. A plausible explanation is that voters succumbed to a common cognitive bias by applying peak-end heuristics. Another is that voters deliberately used peak-end transfers to update beliefs about the incumbent party. In either case, the results provide experimental evidence on the classic non-experimental finding that voters are especially sensitive to recent economic activity.