American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
All Eyes on Them: A Field Experiment on Citizen Oversight and Electoral Integrity
American Economic Review
vol. 112,
no. 8, August 2022
(pp. 2631–68)
Abstract
Can information and communication technologies help citizens monitor their elections? We analyze a large-scale field experiment designed to answer this question in Colombia. We leveraged Facebook advertisements sent to over 4 million potential voters to encourage citizen reporting of electoral irregularities. We also cross-randomized whether candidates were informed about the campaign in a subset of municipalities. Total reports, and evidence-backed ones, experienced a large increase. Across a wide array of measures, electoral irregularities decreased. Finally, the reporting campaign reduced the vote share of candidates dependent on irregularities. This light-touch intervention is more cost-effective than monitoring efforts traditionally used by policymakers.Citation
Garbiras-Díaz, Natalia, and Mateo Montenegro. 2022. "All Eyes on Them: A Field Experiment on Citizen Oversight and Electoral Integrity." American Economic Review 112 (8): 2631–68. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20210778Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C93 Field Experiments
- D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements