Expressway to Votes: Infrastructure Projects and Voter Persuasion
研究土耳其高速公路建设如何使执政党得票率提升4.8个百分点，发现选民被项目的可见性和政府能力信号说服，而非经济增长驱动。
Abstract This paper provides causal evidence on how political parties can sway voters at scale in nascent electoral democracies. We collect novel data on expressway construction by the Justice and Development Party in Turkey and use province-by-year variation in construction to show that votes for the Justice and Development Party increased in response to the expressways. The estimates imply that the expressways increased the Justice and Development Party’s vote share by 4.8 percentage points—a third of the increase from 2002 to 2011. We provide evidence that the visibility and competence signalled by the expressway expansion, and not increased local economic growth, drove increased vote shares.