Pension benefits and social cohesion

How does the expansion of social protection programs to the poor in developing democracies affect social cohesion? I address this question by examining Bolivia's central government run, non-contributory pension program, Renta Dignidad. Using a regression discontinuity design as well as a novel difference-in-discontinuities design, I find that recipients of pension benefits are overall more likely to display increased support for the central government and that in provinces where both territorial tensions and class tensions are most acute, support for the central government is significantly greater. This is consistent with a theoretical argument that expansion of social protection to the poor can mitigate opposition on active dimensions of social conflict that intersect the socio-economic dimension.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Andronescu, Cristina Gabriela

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Teppei Yamamoto.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107533

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/107533