Harvesting Votes: The Electoral Effects of the Italian Land Reform

Abstract

Governments often implement large-scale redistribution policies to gain enduring political support. However, little is known on whether such policies generate sizable gains, whether these gains are persistent, and why. We study the political consequences of a major land reform in Italy. A panel spatial regression discontinuity design shows that the reform generated large electoral gains for the incumbent Christian Democratic party. The electoral effects persist over four decades. We explore several channels and find that clientelist brokering and patronage are plausible mechanisms for this persistence.