Paula Rettl (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Paula Rettl (HBS), "Turning Away from the State: Trade Shocks and Informal Insurance in Brazil"

Abstract

How does economic globalization affect vote choices? Conventional wisdom holds that voters who lose out from economic integration support parties that propose expanding the welfare state. However, in the Global South, where the state is frequently weak or under-resourced, people often turn to non-state organizations (such as churches) for protection against economic decline. I argue that, in these contexts, negative globalization shocks increase local communities’ dependence on non-state organizations, thereby making the leaders within such organizations more effective political brokers. To test this argument, I propose a shift-share instrument that measures the exposure of Brazilian local labor markets to exogenous changes in exports. By matching this instrument with electoral and survey data, I provide evidence that declining exports increased the power of evangelical leaders to persuade their congregations to vote against parties that favor welfare-state expansion. My findings help explain and describe the contingencies underlying the political consequences of globalization.

Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.

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See the seminar's full schedule at the Alesina Seminar page.

All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.