Three Essays in Latin American Political Economy
This dissertation examines how political incentives shape the allocation of public resources and the use of coercion. I explore how political actors respond to electoral, bureaucratic, and strategic constraints when distributing power, favor, or violence. The first chapter uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of campaign contributions on public procurement in Colombia. Firms contributing to winning mayoral candidates receive significantly larger contracts than those supporting losing candidates, suggesting a direct channel of political favoritism through campaign finance. The second chapter investigates whether electoral competition can discipline bureaucratic favoritism. Drawing on procurement contract data, it compares awards by newly appointed versus incumbent officers following local elections. It finds that while newly appointed officers tend to grant larger contracts, this patronage premium is sharply reduced in municipalities with greater political competition. The third chapter develops a formal model of empire building in which destructive conquest can serve as a rational strategy to build a reputation. It shows that empires facing repeated resistance may credibly use costly punishment to deter future challenges. An application to Inca military expansion illustrates it.
Causal Inference, Econometrics, Economic History, Game Theory, Political Economy, Public Procurement
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