Under Review
Transparency not Rhetoric Builds Support for Fiscal Reforms in Debt-Burdened Countries: Experimental Evidence from Ghana
Debt-burdened governments often implement austerity measures to meet repayment obligations, requiring public support for policies with immediate economic costs. This study investigates two strategies leaders use to mobilize support: nationalist framing, which appeals to collective sacrifice for national progress, and cost transparency, which openly details the short-term financial burdens of reforms to not catch voters unaware. To investigate the trade-offs of each, I use an original survey experiment with Ghanaian voters centered around different presentations of a recent economic reform in the country. Findings show cost transparency significantly increases public support by managing expectations and enhancing policy credibility, particularly among educated voters. In contrast, nationalist rhetoric mobilizes less-educated voters but heightens their anxiety about future conditions. The findings make a case for public deliberation and transparency to build citizen trust and compliance for fiscal reforms over rhetorical strategies that may secure short-term support among lower-status groups but risk long-term backlash.
Debt-burdened governments often implement austerity measures to meet repayment obligations, requiring public support for policies with immediate economic costs. This study investigates two strategies leaders use to mobilize support: nationalist framing, which appeals to collective sacrifice for national progress, and cost transparency, which openly details the short-term financial burdens of reforms to not catch voters unaware. To investigate the trade-offs of each, I use an original survey experiment with Ghanaian voters centered around different presentations of a recent economic reform in the country. Findings show cost transparency significantly increases public support by managing expectations and enhancing policy credibility, particularly among educated voters. In contrast, nationalist rhetoric mobilizes less-educated voters but heightens their anxiety about future conditions. The findings make a case for public deliberation and transparency to build citizen trust and compliance for fiscal reforms over rhetorical strategies that may secure short-term support among lower-status groups but risk long-term backlash.
- Blog: "Taxes, Trust, and Transparency: Lessons for Ghana's Fiscal Future", International Centre for Tax & Development (2025)
- Media: "Can Improving Taxation In Africa Help Meet Health Needs?", Forbes (2025)
The Effects of Learning about New Electoral Rules: Field Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone with Gwyneth McClendon
How do switches in electoral rules influence voter behavior? A robust literature has provided theory and empirical evidence, but the focus has largely been on elite-led mechanisms of change. We contribute by examining whether voter learning about electoral rules can have direct effects on how voters participate in and think about elections. To do so, we implement a field experiment in the context of a real-world switch from single-member plurality rules to multi-member district, closed-list proportional rules in Sierra Leone, thus expanding the experimental study of voter reactions to electoral rules into the field and further into the Global South. We randomize information about the new electoral rules across individuals. We find that learning about MMD/PR increased women’s commitment to voting, decreased voter support for particularistic appeals, and increased trust in the elections. These effects appeared even though elites had not fully adjusted their campaigning to the new electoral rules.
How do switches in electoral rules influence voter behavior? A robust literature has provided theory and empirical evidence, but the focus has largely been on elite-led mechanisms of change. We contribute by examining whether voter learning about electoral rules can have direct effects on how voters participate in and think about elections. To do so, we implement a field experiment in the context of a real-world switch from single-member plurality rules to multi-member district, closed-list proportional rules in Sierra Leone, thus expanding the experimental study of voter reactions to electoral rules into the field and further into the Global South. We randomize information about the new electoral rules across individuals. We find that learning about MMD/PR increased women’s commitment to voting, decreased voter support for particularistic appeals, and increased trust in the elections. These effects appeared even though elites had not fully adjusted their campaigning to the new electoral rules.
- Revise & Resubmit at the American Political Science Review
Working Papers (drafts available upon request)
Africa Beyond Aid? Foreign Aid Cutbacks and Political Competition in sub-Saharan Africa
How do reductions in foreign aid affect the nature of party competition and clientelism in sub-Saharan Africa? I argue that when foreign aid recedes, incumbents face a tighter fiscal budget constraint that raises the cost of targeted redistribution, weakens incumbency advantage, and shifts incentives toward broad-based electoral competition and more credit-claimable, programmatic appeals. In response, parties become less clientelistic, expand their organizational presence in a way that nationalizes party competition, and make efforts to distinguish their party brand through distinct platforms. I demonstrate this phenomenon using both cross-national and sub-national data, leveraging the International Development Association’s (IDA) country income thresholds for concessional aid eligibility as an instrument for changes in foreign aid levels. Cross-nationally, I first show that aid cutbacks are associated with the rise of distinct party platforms and less regionally concentrated party competition in African countries. Then, through a district-level analysis of aid disbursements in Ghana, a West African country that experienced a large cutback in foreign aid after crossing the IDA threshold, I use a difference-in-differences strategy of heterogeneous treatment exposure to show that districts experiencing significant aid reductions report lower rates of incumbent re-election and tighter election margins, suggesting increased competitiveness in parliamentary elections where aid pulled back. This study brings to light new evidence about the role that aid may be playing in impeding democratic accountability in Africa, particularly its party-constituent linkages .
Beyond Foreign Aid: How do Developing Countries Substitute Concessional Finance? with Mengfan Cheng
Developing countries have traditionally relied on foreign aid from Western donors to support government budgets. Despite extensive attention to its allocation, donor incentives, and effectiveness, we know little about how foreign aid is positioned relative to other financing instruments, especially how leaders choose substitutes when aid becomes less abundant. We theorize that politicians face threats to political survival when they lose access to foreign aid and prioritize financing substitutes with higher political benefits at the expense of high financial costs. Accordingly, we develop a theoretical framework that evaluates the comparative advantages of internal and external revenue substitutes for governments transitioning away from aid-based financing based on their political benefits and financial costs. We employ an instrumental variable design, leveraging the exogenous shock of crossing the International Development Association (IDA)'s operational lending threshold. Using comprehensive data on over two decades of borrowing, we find causal evidence that developing country governments primarily turn to the bond market when experiencing a loss in aid revenues, rather than relying on taxation or Chinese finance. We also demonstrate that their choice of substitutes is influenced by both international and domestic factors, such as global liquidity and domestic political competition. This paper connects the literature on foreign aid volatility with the broader scholarship on the political economy of sovereign finance. Our results carry policy implications for developing countries' financial sustainability and governance outcomes following an important transitional moment.
The Other China Shock: Chinese Finance and Bond Markets with Layna Mosley and B. Peter Rosendorff
China's rise as a source of sovereign credit not only facilitated increased borrowing by many low- and middle-income sovereigns, but also shifted the connection between domestic political institutions and access to credit -- the ``democratic advantage". While recent analyses suggest that this democratic advantage is conditional on liquidity and risk tolerance in private capital markets, we provide an alternate account. We hypothesize that the capacity of developing country sovereigns to issue bonds in international markets, as well as the limited penalty experienced by non-democratic sovereign borrowers in such markets, is partly the result of Chinese outward financing. We test these claims using a newly-updated issue-level dataset of sovereign bonds, and we instrument for Chinese outward lending using various aspects of China's domestic liquidity conditions. Our analyses point to an underappreciated aspect of the emergence of new bilateral creditors: their effects on long-standing linkages between political institutions and credit access in private capital markets and, therefore, on governments' choice among financing instruments.
How do reductions in foreign aid affect the nature of party competition and clientelism in sub-Saharan Africa? I argue that when foreign aid recedes, incumbents face a tighter fiscal budget constraint that raises the cost of targeted redistribution, weakens incumbency advantage, and shifts incentives toward broad-based electoral competition and more credit-claimable, programmatic appeals. In response, parties become less clientelistic, expand their organizational presence in a way that nationalizes party competition, and make efforts to distinguish their party brand through distinct platforms. I demonstrate this phenomenon using both cross-national and sub-national data, leveraging the International Development Association’s (IDA) country income thresholds for concessional aid eligibility as an instrument for changes in foreign aid levels. Cross-nationally, I first show that aid cutbacks are associated with the rise of distinct party platforms and less regionally concentrated party competition in African countries. Then, through a district-level analysis of aid disbursements in Ghana, a West African country that experienced a large cutback in foreign aid after crossing the IDA threshold, I use a difference-in-differences strategy of heterogeneous treatment exposure to show that districts experiencing significant aid reductions report lower rates of incumbent re-election and tighter election margins, suggesting increased competitiveness in parliamentary elections where aid pulled back. This study brings to light new evidence about the role that aid may be playing in impeding democratic accountability in Africa, particularly its party-constituent linkages .
- Media: "Aid cannot make poor countries rich", The Economist (March, 2025)
Beyond Foreign Aid: How do Developing Countries Substitute Concessional Finance? with Mengfan Cheng
Developing countries have traditionally relied on foreign aid from Western donors to support government budgets. Despite extensive attention to its allocation, donor incentives, and effectiveness, we know little about how foreign aid is positioned relative to other financing instruments, especially how leaders choose substitutes when aid becomes less abundant. We theorize that politicians face threats to political survival when they lose access to foreign aid and prioritize financing substitutes with higher political benefits at the expense of high financial costs. Accordingly, we develop a theoretical framework that evaluates the comparative advantages of internal and external revenue substitutes for governments transitioning away from aid-based financing based on their political benefits and financial costs. We employ an instrumental variable design, leveraging the exogenous shock of crossing the International Development Association (IDA)'s operational lending threshold. Using comprehensive data on over two decades of borrowing, we find causal evidence that developing country governments primarily turn to the bond market when experiencing a loss in aid revenues, rather than relying on taxation or Chinese finance. We also demonstrate that their choice of substitutes is influenced by both international and domestic factors, such as global liquidity and domestic political competition. This paper connects the literature on foreign aid volatility with the broader scholarship on the political economy of sovereign finance. Our results carry policy implications for developing countries' financial sustainability and governance outcomes following an important transitional moment.
The Other China Shock: Chinese Finance and Bond Markets with Layna Mosley and B. Peter Rosendorff
China's rise as a source of sovereign credit not only facilitated increased borrowing by many low- and middle-income sovereigns, but also shifted the connection between domestic political institutions and access to credit -- the ``democratic advantage". While recent analyses suggest that this democratic advantage is conditional on liquidity and risk tolerance in private capital markets, we provide an alternate account. We hypothesize that the capacity of developing country sovereigns to issue bonds in international markets, as well as the limited penalty experienced by non-democratic sovereign borrowers in such markets, is partly the result of Chinese outward financing. We test these claims using a newly-updated issue-level dataset of sovereign bonds, and we instrument for Chinese outward lending using various aspects of China's domestic liquidity conditions. Our analyses point to an underappreciated aspect of the emergence of new bilateral creditors: their effects on long-standing linkages between political institutions and credit access in private capital markets and, therefore, on governments' choice among financing instruments.
Select Works in Progress
Transparency, Trust, and Taxation in Debt-Burdened States: Evidence from Kenya
Preventing and Countering Extremism by Building Civilian-State Cooperation among Women: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya with Jimmy Graham and Anna Wilke
Preventing and Countering Extremism by Building Civilian-State Cooperation among Women: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya with Jimmy Graham and Anna Wilke
- Funders' project page: Innovations for Poverty Action Peace & Recovery Initiative
- Funders' project page: International Growth Centre (IGC) and J-PAL
