【Job Talk】Social Incentives of Non-Elected Leaders in Village Economies
2026/01/09
研討會日期 : 2026-01-09
時間 : 10:30
主講人 : Ms. Minji Kwak (郭敃知)
地點 : Conference Room B110
主持人 : Professor Tzu-Ting Yang
演講者 : Ms. Kwak is expected to receive her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Southern California in 2026. Her research fields are Development Economics, Applied Microeconomics, Political Economy, Economics of Education, and Urban Economics. She is applying for a position of the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica now.
演講摘要 : This paper examines how traditional leaders in Malawi allocate social subsidies intended for the poor and how accountability and social incentives shape their decisions. Using a lab-in-the-field experiment, I study how traditional leaders' allocation preferences change under different accountability treatments. I find that when traditional leaders are informed that their allocations will be disclosed to villagers, they shift toward wealthier and more productive households, resulting in higher targeting errors, whereas disclosure to their superiors has little effect. These shifts are not driven by expectations of direct transfers to leaders but are strongest where leaders' authority is weaker, such as in smaller villages, among shorter-tenured leaders, or those facing complaints. Leaders also appear to expect that allocating to households with greater resources or higher returns to input use will improve overall village welfare, though this expectation is not realized in practice. Taken together, increased transparency may worsen poverty targeting while improving productivity targeting, as accountability to villagers leads leaders to favor wealthier yet more productive households to maintain local stability and to promote perceived village welfare.
