Arbeitspapier

Out of Communal Land: Clientelism through Delegation of Agricultural Tenancy Contracts

Do local institutions influence the nature of political clientelist exchange? We find a positive answer in the context of a village institution prevalent in Java since the Dutch colonial rule, where democratically elected village heads receive usufruct rights over a piece of communal village land (bengkok land) as a compensation for their service in lieu of salary. To formulate how limited-term private ownership of bengkok land promotes clientelism, we model a timely delegation of agricultural tenancy contracts to villagers-cum-voters as an incumbent re-election strategy. Based on a household survey fielded in 2018 across 130 villages in Java, Indonesia, we find that the chances of a bengkok plot being rented out increase by 6 percentage points as the time of the next election becomes closer by one year, and sharecropping is preferred to a fixed-rental contract as the election approaches. The empirical results are statistically significant and remain largely unchanged against a series of robustness checks. We also find suggestive evidence of short-term efficiency loss from clientelist politics over bengkok land.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 14263

Classification
Wirtschaft
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism; Secession
Public Administration; Public Sector Accounting and Audits
Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
Subject
tanah bengkok
political budget cycle
clientelism
agricultural tenancy
electoral competition
Indonesia

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Kurosaki, Takashi
Paul, Saumik
Witoelar, Firman
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
(where)
Bonn
(when)
2021

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Kurosaki, Takashi
  • Paul, Saumik
  • Witoelar, Firman
  • Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Time of origin

  • 2021

Other Objects (12)