UC San Diego

Economic development relies on political institutions and policies set by governments. This dissertation studies policies aimed at improving the functioning of three core state institutions: elections, bureaucracy, and local governments.

Chapter 1 studies the impacts of broadcast election video monitoring on voting in Russia. I use a regression discontinuity design based on the size of polling stations in the presidential election to estimate causal effects. I find that video monitoring reduced reported voter turnout and votes for the incumbent, suggesting a decrease in fraud. However, that decrease was partially offset by increased votes for the incumbent in neighboring unmonitored polling stations. Using a survey experiment, I find that higher awareness about video monitoring increased citizens' trust in elections and their willingness to vote. All in all, these results suggest that video monitoring might improve citizens' attitudes toward the government at a low cost in terms of net lost votes.

Chapter 2 reports evidence from a randomized evaluation of a reform intended to improve the Afghan government's capacity to identify their employees and pay them for their work. This reform transitioned employees from being paid by trusted agents and banks to mobile money payments. We find that registration for a mobile money wallet with biometric identification helped eliminate `ghost' employees from the payroll, albeit imperfectly. Mobile payments improved employees' satisfaction with how they are paid and promoted a pathway toward their financial inclusion, especially in the secure urban areas previously serviced by banks. Overall, we find that state modernization is possible even in the shadow of war.

Chapter 3 evaluates the effects of fiscal and administrative decentralization of local governments on economic activity in Ukraine. I exploit variation in the timing of decentralization across communities to estimate causal effects on firms and self-employed individuals using difference-in-differences methods. I find that decentralization reduced the number of active self-employed individuals, mainly in rural areas. There were, however, no significant changes in the number of active firms. These results suggest that successfully applied governance reforms might have unintended economic consequences.