Direct democracy and local public goods
Subtitle: evidence from a field experiment in Indonesia
By: Benjamin A. Olken.
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 14123; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 14123.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "This paper presents an experiment where 48 Indonesian villages were randomly assigned to choose development projects through either representative-based meetings or direct election-based plebiscites.  Plebiscites resulted in dramatically higher satisfaction among villagers, increased knowledge about the project, greater perceived benefits, and higher reported willingness to contribute.  Changing the political mechanism had much smaller effects on the actual projects selected, with some evidence that plebiscites resulted in projects chosen by women being located in poorer areas.  The results show that direct participation in political decision making can substantially increase satisfaction and legitimacy, even when it has little effect on actual decisions"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 7/18/2008.

Includes bibliographical references.

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