Essays in Development Economics

Abstract

Economic development, more often than not, is tightly connected to good governance and adequate provision of public goods and services. My dissertation examines characteristics of developing countries that are relevant to the quality of government, as they affect the interaction between citizens and government. In chapter 1, I focus on squatters and the opportunities for political intermediation associated with the lack of property rights on land. In this chapter, I study an extensive land titling program in urban Mexico and its effect on clientelism. In chapter 2, I examine the costs of party turnover for the quality of public education in Brazilian municipalities, a context where the bureaucracy is not shielded from the political process. In chapter 3, I study the feedback effect of government work on citizens’ participation. To this end, I focus on maintenance work on the public space and citizens’ complaints in the City of Buenos Aires.