1 Clientelism and Vote Buying: Lessons from Field Experiments in West Africa*

Electoral clientelism and vote buying are widely perceived as major obstacles to economic development. This is because they may limit the provision of public goods. In this paper, we review the literature on clientelism and vote buying and propose the use of field experiments to empirically evaluate the consequences of these phenomena. We summarize the results from two field experiments conducted by the authors in West African countries. Clientelism and vote buying seem to be effective and to enjoy widespread electoral support. The results from Wantchekon (2003) suggest that increased access to information and political participation by women may limit clientelism. In addition, Vicente (2007) finds that voter education campaigns may undermine the effects of vote buying on voting behavior. We argue that development aid interventions may be designed to effectively increase public-goo