Re-election incentives and the adoption of early childhood development programmes: The case of the “Happy Child” Programme in Brazil

Raquel Tebaldi; Franziska Gassmann; Bruno Martorano

doi:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102616

Re-election incentives and the adoption of early childhood development programmes: The case of the “Happy Child” Programme in Brazil

Raquel Tebaldi^*, Franziska Gassmann, Bruno Martorano

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

What incentives matter for governments to adopt pro-poor early childhood development (ECD) policies? This paper addresses this question by employing a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to study the effect of mayoral re-election incentives on the adoption of the “Happy Child” ECD Programme in Brazil. The analysis finds that municipalities with first-term mayors (those that were eligible for re-election for another consecutive mandate) had a higher probability of programme adoption by 2018 of over 10 percentage points. These results confirm theoretical expectations about the role of re-election incentives and provide a significant contribution on the institutional determinants of the expansion of ECD programmes in developing countries.

Original language	English
Article number	102616
Journal	European Journal of Political Economy
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102616
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 1 Jan 2024

Keywords

Early childhood development
Electoral rules
Re-election incentives
Term limits

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10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102616Licence: CC BY

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title = "Re-election incentives and the adoption of early childhood development programmes: The case of the “Happy Child” Programme in Brazil",

abstract = "What incentives matter for governments to adopt pro-poor early childhood development (ECD) policies? This paper addresses this question by employing a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to study the effect of mayoral re-election incentives on the adoption of the “Happy Child” ECD Programme in Brazil. The analysis finds that municipalities with first-term mayors (those that were eligible for re-election for another consecutive mandate) had a higher probability of programme adoption by 2018 of over 10 percentage points. These results confirm theoretical expectations about the role of re-election incentives and provide a significant contribution on the institutional determinants of the expansion of ECD programmes in developing countries.",

keywords = "Early childhood development, Electoral rules, Re-election incentives, Term limits",

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AU - Tebaldi, Raquel

AU - Gassmann, Franziska

AU - Martorano, Bruno

PY - 2024/1/1

Y1 - 2024/1/1

N2 - What incentives matter for governments to adopt pro-poor early childhood development (ECD) policies? This paper addresses this question by employing a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to study the effect of mayoral re-election incentives on the adoption of the “Happy Child” ECD Programme in Brazil. The analysis finds that municipalities with first-term mayors (those that were eligible for re-election for another consecutive mandate) had a higher probability of programme adoption by 2018 of over 10 percentage points. These results confirm theoretical expectations about the role of re-election incentives and provide a significant contribution on the institutional determinants of the expansion of ECD programmes in developing countries.

AB - What incentives matter for governments to adopt pro-poor early childhood development (ECD) policies? This paper addresses this question by employing a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to study the effect of mayoral re-election incentives on the adoption of the “Happy Child” ECD Programme in Brazil. The analysis finds that municipalities with first-term mayors (those that were eligible for re-election for another consecutive mandate) had a higher probability of programme adoption by 2018 of over 10 percentage points. These results confirm theoretical expectations about the role of re-election incentives and provide a significant contribution on the institutional determinants of the expansion of ECD programmes in developing countries.

KW - Early childhood development

KW - Electoral rules

KW - Re-election incentives

KW - Term limits

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DO - 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102616

M3 - Article

SN - 0176-2680

JO - European Journal of Political Economy

JF - European Journal of Political Economy

M1 - 102616

ER -

Re-election incentives and the adoption of early childhood development programmes: The case of the “Happy Child” Programme in Brazil

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Keywords

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