UC Berkeley

This dissertation studies the implementation of large-scale public policies in developing countries. Chapter I focuses on how collective action can shape public policy. In particular, I study how organized groups of workers affected the land reform implemented by Salvador Allende ́s government in 1970 in Chile. Using an event-study design, we find that the local political action of workers - proxied by land invasions - affected the intensity and location of expropriations. In Chapter II, I change time and location and study how political favoritism affected the expansion of the electric grid in Kenya around the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections. While the aggregate political bias we estimate is meaningful, it is smaller in magnitude than that documented previously, suggesting that increasingly active independent media scrutiny as well as increasingly robust democratic institutions, expanding constraints on executive power, and donor oversight may have partly curbed favoritism. Finally, in Chapter III I study the effects on welfare of a large-scale public investment: the expansion of the subway network in Santiago, Chile between 2002 and 2020. We find that when workers receive access to the subway network, they start taking jobs further away. We see an increase in wages for benefited workers, including those workers who do not switch firms, suggesting a reduction in the labor market power firms have over workers. Our model estimates suggest incorporating labor market power can make an important difference in welfare estimations.