Essays in Development Economics

Abstract

This dissertation explores the political and economic determinants of why households in developing countries have different economic outcomes. The first chapter documents how different electoral rules can lead to different patterns of voting and public goods provision. This chapter uses data from Brazilian municipal elections between 1996-2016 to show that two-round systems, compared to single-round systems, lead politicians to appeal more broadly to the electorate and to provide public goods more broadly. The second chapter quantifies the effect of the anti-sweatshop movement in the 1990s on female workers in textile factories in Indonesia. The third chapter studies the implementation of a proxy-means testing system in Colombia. This chapter uses machine learning techniques to evaluate the performance of the government's targeting system and documents why households may manipulate their eligibility for social programs.