undermine democratic institutions and the rights of the poor, and thereby lower public investments in pro-poor policies (Stokes, 2005, 2007; Vicente and Wantchekon, 2009; Banerjee et al, 2011; Vicente and Collier, forthcoming).<sup>11</sup> Baland and Robinson (2006) provide related evidence that the introduction of the secret ballot, in Chile around 1958, which presumably reduced the efficacy of clientelist strategies, reduced the vote share of right-wing parties. Another strand of the literature examines clientelism as a form of inefficient redistribution which arises from the lack of credibility of political promises (Acemoglu, 2001; Robinson and Verdier, 2003; Robinson and Torvik, 2005; Keefer and Vlaicu, 2008). In these models, the inherent inefficiency in clientelistic redistribution has negative implications for broad public goods, such as institutions of good governance (rule of law, protection of property rights, etc.), and progrowth policies.

However, it is also conceivable that some forms of vote buying could be a result of political responsiveness to the needs of the poor (Schaffer, 2005, 2007). The selection of vote buying political strategies could, potentially, go hand-in-hand with pro-poor public policies. The received theory is insufficient to draw firm conclusions in this regard. This paper is the first to provide direct empirical evidence on the issue, using a deliberately designed survey to measure both vote buying and service delivery at an appropriate jurisdictional level. It reveals that where political contestation using vote buying strategies—offers of money in exchange for votes during elections—is more widespread, politicians reduce investments in primary health services. The service delivery instruments around primary health that municipalities in the Philippines are responsible for, are particularly likely to be broadly pro-poor in delivering benefits.<sup>12</sup> Indeed, poverty research suggests that these types of health services have the potential to serve as effective instruments to combat poverty, particularly when poverty is widespread (Besley and Coate, 1991, and Van DeWalle and Nead, 1995). The data therefore reveal that vote buying is associated with fewer resources to and weak performance in delivering pro-poor services.

Future research could fruitfully focus on developing a stronger theory and gathering more detailed empirical evidence on the precise mechanisms by which vote buying and clientelism might translate into lower levels of public services, particularly those that could be disproportionately beneficial to the poor. Future research might also examine the extent to which the negative empirical relationship between vote buying and service delivery uncovered here carries over to other contexts.

The next section describes the institutional context in the Philippines, and the sampling strategy. Section 3 provides a detailed examination of the sources of variation in vote buying, which are controlled for in examining the main correlation of interest between vote buying and health service delivery. Section 4 discusses the empirical specification to correlate vote buying with health service delivery, confronting potential problems in interpreting the correlation, and

> 11 Formal theoretical analyses of the policy consequences of vote buying make assumptions that are not sufficiently applicable to the weak institutional contexts of developing economies where vote buying is known to be widely practiced (Dekel et al, 2008; Dl Bo, 2007; Philipson and Snyder, 1996). Vicente and Wantchekon (2009) summarize the literature, and argue that in the particular contexts of developing countries, where voters are poorly informed, and where institutions are generally weak, clientelism and vote buying are likely to be inefficient forms of redistribution, with negative consequences for broad public goods.

> 12 Section 2 provides more detail on why this area of policy is the one particularly within municipal political control, and with the potential of being highly pro-poor.

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