Naming and Claiming: The Effects of Politicians Labeling Government Benefits

• In Event: Clientelism and Distributive Politics 2

Abstract

In April 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department made an unprecedented decision that stimulus checks sent via postal mail would carry the words “President Donald J. Trump” printed on the memo line. While unprecedented for IRS checks, both in the United States and elsewhere around the world, politicians regularly put their names on government benefits. Presumably, these politicians want to see their names on government benefits and services in part because they believe that will help them at the ballot box. Are they right? Do politicians win votes by putting their names on government benefits to personally claim credit for these policies? We conducted a survey experiment in Argentina where we provided respondents with a description of a government program to help the poor through the distribution of boxes of food. The description included a picture of one of those boxes: half of the respondents saw a picture that showed a box labeled only with the name of the municipality, while the other half saw a box that was also labeled with the mayor’s name. We also randomly assigned the gender and party of the mayor, as well as the fairness of the program (i.e., whether it was clientelistic or not). Follow up questions inquire about the respondent’s likelihood of voting for the incumbent and the respondent’s perceptions that the mayor governs in favor of the poor, buys votes, or is engaged in corruption.

Author

• Virginia Oliveros, Tulane University