(2165025X - Philippine Political Science Journal) Political Dynasties and Economic Development - Evidence Using Nighttime Light in The Philippines

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL
SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

Philippine
Political Science
Journal
brill.com/ppsj
brill.com/ppsj
Political Dynasties and Economic Development:

Evidence using Nighttime Light in the Philippines
Ludigil Garces
PhD Student, School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman,
Quezon City, Philippines
llgarces@up.edu.ph
Karl Jandoc
Assistant Professor, School of Economics, University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
kljandoc@up.edu.ph
Mary Grace Lu
Researcher, School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman,
Quezon City, Philippines
mglu234@gmail.com
Abstract
Political dynasties, by limiting political competition, are thought to exacerbate cor-

ruption, poverty, and abuse of power. This paper examines the economic effects of
the presence of political dynasties in Philippine cities and municipalities, taking
into account possible channels in the local dynastic cycle – the framework in which
politicians try to balance their goals to perform well for their constituents, to divert
resources for personal gain, and to continue to be in power. Due to the lack of extensive
income accounts or other economic indicators in finer geographical units (i.e., city or
municipality level), we use the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational
Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) nighttime light data as our proxy for economic activ-
ity. Using a panel of Philippine municipalities and cities, we find that, in general, the
relationship of political dynasties on economic performance is weak. However, we find
that a higher share of economic expenditures leads to lower economic development in
municipalities where the mayor, governor, and congressman belong to the same clan.
We see this as an indication of weak institutions of checks and balances in localities
with dynasties.
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216 Garces, Jandoc and Lu
Keywords
political dynasty – nighttime light – economic development – small area estimates –

local dynastic cycle – patronage politics
1 Introduction
Political dynasties are families holding several elective positions in a govern-

ment either simultaneously or hereditarily. In the Philippines, only around
250 families dominate both local and national politics (Pabello 2013). Political
dynasties dominated the 2013 midterm elections, with 74 percent of the Lower
House members coming from political clans (Purdey, Tadem, and Tadem
2016). The AIM Policy Center Political Dynasties Dataset (Figure 1) suggests a
slight increase in prevalence of Filipino political dynasties from 2004–2013.
The trend appears to continue in succeeding periods.1
The economic effects of dynasties are widely documented but with polar-
izing results. On one hand, the argument that favors political dynasties are
centered on the notion that longer time in political positions leads to the
development of social and political capital. According to Olson (2009), and
Besley and Reynal-Querol (2017), the longer time horizon afforded by these
clans produces better economic outcomes through more forward-looking eco-
nomic policies and programs. On the other hand, studies that find dynasties as
deleterious to economic performance argue that they lead to negative redis-
tribution of government resources away from policies that promote welfare or
economic growth.
Filipino political dynasties are part of the wider “Padrino system” of politi-
cal patronage and clientelism (Hutchcroft and Rocamora 2003). Clientelism
corresponds to the transfers of private goods, both pecuniary and physical in
nature, to the constituents of politicians to ensure their reelection and power.
The accumulation and utilization of political capital through favors, social
relationships, and political influence by Filipino politicians often lead to some
form of agency dilemma to the voters and the rule of law. This culture can be
attributed as a product of American colonial emphasis on patronage over ide-
ology in political parties, and an excessively powerful presidency (Hutchcroft
and Rocamora 2003). These relationships are thought to weaken government
1 Analysis of the recent 2019 elections suggests that political dynasties are still prevalent in
Philippine politics with over 70% of all elected national and local officials belonging to a
dynasty (Jiao, Calonzo and Dormido 2019).
PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

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Political Dynasties and Economic Development 217
figure 1 Total Number of Politicians from a Dynasty by the Major Island

Groups in the Philippines
Source: AIM Policy Center Political Dynasties
Dataset
efficiency and often lead to abuse of power, corruption, and regional favorit-
ism. Hence, this political arrangement consequently allowed the systematic
plunder of resources, corruption, and weakening of democratic institutions
(Quimpo 2009). Confirming this hypothesis, Mendoza, Beja, Venida, and Yap
(2016) showed that political dynasties exacerbate poverty especially in prov-
inces outside Luzon, the largest major island in the Philippines.
This paper aims to contribute to the literature on the economic effects of
political dynasties in several ways. First, previous studies about political dynas-
ties are primarily focused on economic measures in both national and provin-
cial levels. We will attempt to examine economic effects on finer geographical
units, namely cities and municipalities. The main stumbling block to carry out
such analysis is that most economic-related information is unavailable at finer
geographical levels in the Philippines. According to the Asian Development
Bank, a popular emerging data source for these missing socioeconomic indica-
tors in the municipal-level and city-level is luminosity from nighttime lights
(Martinez 2017). The advantage of examining smaller administrative units is
that it enables us to control for unobserved heterogeneity at this level.2 We
use the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program – Operational Linescan
System (DMSP-OLS) nighttime light data as a proxy for economic activity at
2 Unobserved heterogeneity, in this context, refers to quantitative data or information spe-

cific to municipalities that is not available to the researcher. Examples of this include
municipality-specific “culture”, inherent ability of the elected officials, resource endowments
and the like.

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the municipal level. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to use night-
time light data to examine the economic effect of political dynasties in the
Philippines.3 Using the DMSP-OLS nighttime light data is an emerging popu-
lar approach to represent economic activity in smaller administrative units
(Tanaka and Keola 2017). As an extension, we also explore alternate specifica-
tions using the Small Area Estimates (SAE) of the Philippine Statistics Authority
(PSA) which measures poverty at the local level.
Second, we attempt to determine whether local political dynamics affect
the influence of political dynasties on economic performance. We ask the
question whether dynastic mayors will have a different impact depending on
their ties with governors, congressmen, and other municipal politicians. The
structure of local government in the Philippines allows for powerful mayors.
Montiel and Chiongbian (1991) suggests that the relatively weak perception of
Filipinos about other elective positions facilitated the growth of local political
blocs centered around mayors. This means that local elections are dispropor-
tionately focused on mayors, effectively giving them more power than neces-
sary while weakening the influence of other local positions. The distinction
between different positions provides a richer characterization of local politics
over traditional measures in the literature such as dynastic shares where the
measure implicitly assumes equal weight of influence across elective positions.
Third, we address whether economic effects of dynasties are different for
rich and poor localities. The effects of political dynasties should vary with
population and income level. With a higher population, maintaining centrality
and power becomes more expensive and difficult. Meanwhile, higher incomes
tend to lessen the appeal of redistributive transfers from clientelist politicians,
while also increasing the human development of individuals which weakens
dependence on transfers from politicians. Both higher population and higher
income make traditional clientelist practices less attractive. Furthermore, big-
ger localities allow for more political competition. Solon, Fabella, and Capuno
(2009) found that political competition leads to the use of developmental poli-
cies to increase the chances of reelection. Hence, we argue that political dynas-
ties in rich and big cities strive for actual development more than those from
small and poor towns, leading to smaller adverse economic effects attributed
to political dynasties. The longer tenure of these dynasties improves political
capital which will be helpful in pursuing long term development goals.
3 In India, the working paper of George and Ponattu (2018) finds that dynastic rule has a nega-
tive effect on local development by investigating the growth of nighttime lights in Indian
villages.

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The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 discusses the related
literature; Section 3 discusses our data; Section 4 explains our empirical strat-
egy; Section 5 presents the results; and Section 6 concludes.
2 Background and Literature
2.1 Philippine Political Dynasties and Local Politics

An incumbent official having at least one relative who served in the past or
serves at present belongs to a political dynasty. By this definition, over 70 per-
cent of Philippine senators and congressmen come from political families as
of 2013 (Mendoza et al. 2016). Querubin (2016) argues that Filipino political
dynasties endure since incumbent government officials (who may be part of
dynasties) are five times more probable of having future relatives in office than
their political opponents. These relatives are given twice as much electoral
advantage than those whose relatives have retired or have not held office when
they ran.
Political dynasties in the Philippines are well documented in the literature.
Mendoza et al. (2016) finds that political dynasties worsened poverty in Visayas
and Mindanao. In terms of legislators, dynastic congressmen cease to partici-
pate in legislation, an evidence of the detrimental effect of political dynasties
to Philippine political institutions (Panao 2016). Moreover, dynastic congress-
men are more likely to bring higher pork barrel allocations to their provinces,
but dynastic politicians undermine good governance, leading to deleterious
effects in public goods allocation (Tusalem and Aguirre 2013). The negative
effect of political dynasties in the economy and institutions can be attrib-
uted to the use of patronage, clientelism, fear, and coercion to maintain their
hold on power (Coronel, Chua, and Rimban 2004; De Dios 2007; Lande 1965;
Sidel 1989).
Most of the empirical literature on the effect of political dynasties show
that they harm economic activity. Dal Bó, Dal Bó, and Snyder (2009) shows
that political dynasties, even in developed countries such as the United States,
undermine the efficient allocation of goods and oftentimes lead to vote-
increasing redistributive policies. In the Philippines, Mendoza, Beja, Venida,
and Yap (2012) found higher poverty levels and weaker human development
indicators in provinces with a higher percentage of dynastic politicians.
Collas-Monsod, Monsod, and Ducanes (2004) found that political dynasties in
the Philippines correlate with greater poverty incidence, higher infant mortal-
ity in Muslim Mindanao and Cordilleras, lower per capita income, and fewer
years of primary schooling.

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However, the literature documenting the economic effects of dynasties

elected in different local posts at the municipal level is sparser. Bragança,
Ferraz, and Rios (2015) notes that while municipalities with political dynas-
ties in Brazil spend more on urban infrastructure, health, and sanitation, they
observe no improvement in economic growth nor in the quality of public ser-
vice. This indicates that political dynasties may have exacerbated the perni-
cious effects of corruption and mismanagement of public resources. In the
Philippines, Cruz, Labonne, and Querubin (2017) found evidence that munici-
palities dominated by political families use resources to pander to populist pro-
grams (e.g. funeral expenses, fiestas, and granting business permits) to increase
the probability of reelection, rather than spending those same resources to
increase human capital (e.g. social health insurance, skills training, and micro-
credit). The same study shows that the strategy of locally embedded Filipino
political dynasties is often centered on mayoral win, hence giving them a dis-
proportionate incentive and power to pursue the position. This drive for con-
trol leads to corruption, weakening of institutions, strengthening of political
dynasties, and eventually more corruption. This reality suggests that unlike
in developed countries, the weak institutions allow for disproportionately
influential mayors.4
On the other end of the spectrum, there are very few studies that show that
political dynasties are not necessarily bad. A notable example is the study of
Solon et al. (2009), where they found that governors spend on economic devel-
opment to increase the chance of reelection, especially those that face politi-
cal competition and are members of political dynasties. Solon et al. (2009)
recommends promoting political competition instead of an outright ban of
political clans.
Out of the three major island groups in the Philippines, Mindanao deserves
special attention. This is because its history and its politics are shaped by the
conflicts in this region brought about by deliberate policies by the national
government in Manila to weaken Muslim influence (Schiavo-Campo and Judd
2005). These conflicts have compromised formal institutions of governance and
have enabled the rise of local strongmen coming from tightly interconnected
political families, such as the Ampatuans from the province of Maguindanao
4 These weak institutions encompass those that undermine the electoral process, public
finance, political parties, justice system, transactions and contracts, etc as used by Hutchcroft
and Rocamora (2003) and Acemoglu and Robinson (2012). For example, in the presence of
dynasties, politicians may hijack budget processes and priority spending areas, which under-
mines voter independence and political competition in elections and reduces the role of
strong political parties in setting the development agenda.

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figure 2 Ampatuan Political Dynasty Mapping for 2013

Source: AIM Policy Political Dynasty Dataset and Lingao (2013)
(Figure 2).5 Political clans in Mindanao entrench their power by ensuring elec-
toral victory of national candidates through persuasion, intimidation, and
sometimes through outright violence (Abinales and Amoroso 2017).
2.2 Local Dynastic Cycle

Local governance in the Philippines is guided by the 1991 Local Government
Code (LGC). The provision on decentralization in the LGC aims to promote
better services and economic development by empowering local govern-
ment units (LGUs) through fiscal autonomy, and the devolution of powers
and responsibilities originally held by the national government. As mandated
by the law, LGUs are responsible for the provision of services like health and
5 There is an interconnection between familial ties and incidence of conflicts in Mindanao.

For instance, the practice of rido or clan feuds can persist over several generations and is
usually settled outside the formal legal system (Torres III 2014).

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education, local revenue generation, maintaining peace and order, and pro-
motion of economic development in their respective localities (Atienza 2004;
Capuno 2012; Llanto 2012). This governance structure makes local politicians
accountable to their constituents through elections by weeding out underper-
forming leaders. In theory, this should lead to increased innovation in local
delivery of services, but this has been slow and uneven among LGUs, where
perverse electoral incentives like term limits and weak political competition
dissuade innovation of public service provision (Capuno 2005; Capuno 2011).6
Moreover, there are grey areas in the guidelines of local expenditure and rev-
enue generation that lead to different interpretation of powers and uneven
performance of LGUs (Llanto 2012). It is not hard to imagine the benefits of
decentralization to self-interested local politicians and its countervailing
effects on governance innovations. For the entrenched political clans, the LGC
opens more possibilities to exploit and to maintain power in their respective
jurisdiction. The increased responsibility of LGUs also means more avenues
for corruption and clientelistic transfers. Instead of promoting political com-
petition, the devolution of power in jurisdiction dominated by political dynas-
ties could lead to deeper entrenchment, reduced political competition, and
increased corruption, all of which leads to weaker governance and lower devel-
opment outcomes.
With greater fiscal autonomy and local discretionary powers comes an
increased need for check and balances. The LGC addresses this problem
through the introduction of term limits to local politicians, and the empow-
erment of people through civic participation. The term limits are mandated
in order to curb the power of local politicians, while local consultative bod-
ies, which includes non-government organizations and the private sector,
are created to make local policymaking inclusive. Together with elections,
the mentioned provisions should have increased political competition, and
strengthened local governance. However, the effect of the LGC on political
competition and governance is not conclusive. Empirically, there is strong evi-
dence of dynastic persistence in the Philippines (Querubin 2016), and there is
no evidence that term limits succeeded in curbing political dynasties (Querubin
2012). Worse, the current system appears to promote perverse incentives
6 In addition, the role of political parties in enforcing discipline regarding expenditures and
development priorities is muted in current electoral laws. In a working paper, Ravanilla,
Sexton and Haim (2019) found that mayors aligned with Duterte’s drug war platform received
40% less allocation than Liberal Party mayors in 2016 elections. This means that there is a lag
in the benefits of alignment with the current administration, which renders political parties
less effective in driving funds to allies.

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since political challengers choose to defer running until the term limit of
the incumbent politician runs out, further weakening political competition
(Querubin 2012).
Provinces, cities, and municipalities have their own government structures
that complicate dynastic dynamics. The local chief executive of localities
are governors for provinces, city mayors for cities, and municipal mayors for
municipalities. Each type of LGU has their own vice chief executives (vice gov-
ernors or vice mayors), and local councils for legislation and check of chief
executives (provincial board members, city councilors or municipal council-
ors). On national legislation, Filipinos are represented in the Congress by the
congressmen of their legislative district. These districts are not necessarily the
same as the area of jurisdiction of LGUs and could be composed of parts of cit-
ies or several cities and/or municipalities.
The relationships of LGUs to each other is equally complex. Component
cities and municipalities, as part of provinces, are affected by the policies of
the provincial government and mayors are required to report to their provin-
cial unit. For this reason, we treat component cities and municipalities in a
similar fashion. A notable exception to the jurisdiction of provinces are highly
urbanized cities which are independently governed by the city LGUs. On the
legislative side, the representatives to congress add another complexity to
the dynamics of local politics. Because of the discretionary “pork barrel-like”
funds, congressmen can also have a direct impact on the LGUs of their legisla-
tive districts through allocations like social welfare initiatives and infrastruc-
ture investments.
At the forefront of municipal politics is the mayor. Due to expansion of
bureaucracy, the sheer number of elective positions, and the weakness of polit-
ical parties, local politics evolved around a few major actors like the mayor,
congressman, and the governor. We focus on municipal mayors because of
their proximity to their constituents and smaller power brokers like barangay
captains, and their expansive power in municipal politics and governance. Per
the LGC, the mandate and discretionary powers of a mayor includes the exer-
cise of general supervision in a municipality, the ability to propose legislation,
the responsibility to formulate development plans and municipal policies,
head the local bodies like local prequalification, bids and awards committee,
local development council, local health board, and local school board and have
other powers in the municipality as prescribed by the law. An important issue
that arises from the LGC implementation is the rise of budget dictators like
mayors, which plays an important role in budget formulation in a municipality
(Hutchcroft 2012). The LGC aims to avoid the concentration of powers to few

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political actors, but the weak democratic institutions and the supremacy of
personality politics over political parties make this difficult.
One of the most powerful political tools of a mayor is the mandate to
appoint municipal officers and workers which ensures their hold of munici-
pality (Coronel et al. 2004; De Dios 2007). This should not be a problem since
the municipal council must concur with hiring decisions, but there is either
a strong alignment of interests or dominance of mayors in decision making.
Labonne (2016) found that two quarters before an election, employment levels
increase and sharply drops after, an indication of the influence of elections on
the municipal labor markets. Aside from being an obvious form of clientelistic
redistribution, these political cycles are found to be detrimental to develop-
ment and are strongest in sectors where the incumbent is more influential,
and where the political competition is strong (Labonne 2016). The favoritism
in municipal labor hiring decisions is also characterized by strong preference
to relatives of local politicians. Fafchamps and Labonne (2017) found that rela-
tives of incumbent politicians are more likely to be employed in better munici-
pal occupations.
Another check for local governance is participation of social civic groups,
but Filipino mayors have found ways to hijack the system by influencing and
redirecting their projects to their favored constituents. Yu (2014) explained the
organization of social workers in municipal governments and the overreach-
ing influence of mayors. In their analysis of distribution of municipal power
in social work context, there appears to be a disproportionate control of the
municipality by the mayor over the legislative council in the context of social
workers and civic groups (Yu 2014).
Influence on labor and social workers are part of the wider arsenal for
patronage used by the mayors. In the literature, this form of patronage by may-
ors are called Kasal-Binyag-Libing (literally Wedding-Baptism-Burial) strategy
based on the intimacy of clientelistic relationship between local politicians
and their constituents (Aspinall, Davidson, Hicken and Weiss 2016; Cruz 2014;
Cruz et al. 2017; Cruz, Labonne, and Querubin 2020). The Kasal-Binyag-Libing
strategy, which corresponds to politicization of voter weddings, baptisms and
funerals, serves as the backbone of municipal politics in the Philippines. In this
situation, the goal of politicians is to establish intimate relationships with vot-
ers, especially with influential actors and groups like barangay officials using
transfers and personal connections. This redistributive clientelism comes in
both legal and illegal forms. Possible legal strategies for mayors are the use of
social expenditures including free social services like internment, weddings,
fiestas, and baptisms, and free goods like Christmas goodie bags. The experi-
ence varies from each city and municipality, but the combinations of strategies

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are ultimately used to enhance reelection chances even if these are not the
most efficient use of the local budget. For example, in Makati, the financial
capital of the Philippines, the Binay clan held power through a strategy of the
patriarch’s charm and social policies like the controversial free cakes for senior
citizens and burial assistance. These policies are not necessarily bad for big
cities, but a misdirection of funds in much smaller municipalities could be det-
rimental to local development.
Another form of clientelism is the redistribution driven by corruption.
The most common illegal strategy for politicians is vote-buying that comes in
both monetary and non-monetary forms (Canare, Mendoza and Lopez 2018).
Canare et al. (2018) found that only two-thirds of recipients of vote-buying
transfers voted for the buying candidates, suggesting that vote-buying only
reinforces existing political patronage and politicians continue to spend on
vote-buying to increase their chances of winning an election. In the context of
Kasal-Binyag-Libing strategy, local politicians, especially poorer ones, rely on
funds from corruption to pay for their clientelism. Aside from exogenous affin-
ity to plunder public resources, i.e. just being corrupt by nature, the need to
maintain status quo through reelection necessitates further corruption. In any
case, corruption plays an integral role for political patronage and clientelism.
In the case of the Philippines, the LGC adds a different flavor to the dynamics
on how a political dynasty operates. Local executive politicians are equally as
powerful as representatives in wielding local political power, especially when
we consider the importance of centrality of familial linkages for clientelism
(Cruz et al. 2017). Family network centrality in the social network of the locality
leads to higher vote share (Cruz et al. 2017). This highlights the importance of
mayors, the centrality of his political clan, and their Kasal-Binyag-Libing strat-
egy in winning elections. For other politicians, a mayor central to his munici-
pality’s social network makes it easier for his other relatives to win elections.
Synthesizing these dynamics, we can see the importance of mayor in
local elections. In the Philippines, political parties are weak because politi-
cal switching and turncoatism is the norm (Hutchcroft and Rocamora 2003;
Mendoza, Cruz, Yap, and Barua 2014; Quimpo 2007). The weakness of politi-
cal parties is one of the most important examples of the weakness of demo-
cratic institutions in the Philippines (Hutchcroft and Rocamora 2003). In the
absence of political parties, political dynasties become the alternative machin-
ery in elections. Aspinall et al. (2016) calls this the mayor-centered machinery.
The local election machine, which centers around the loyalty to the patron,
operates like a pyramid system with the mayor at the top, down to barangay
(village) or purok (neighborhood) level (Aspinall, et al. 2016). The way this
machine works is that the influential members become the power brokers,

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and they reciprocate patronage by persuading the constituents to vote for the
mayor and his allies, a relationship consistent with utang na loob or social debt
(Hollnsteiner 1963). Such a system is both socially and financially costly, and
only a well-entrenched, well-financed, and well-connected family can easily
maintain such clientelistic structure. For all intents and purposes, the local
machinery is just the social networks created by political patronage, and the
most important fuel is the pecuniary and non-monetary clientelistic trans-
fers from the patron, which is normally the mayor. Because of the substantial
costs, the mayor-centered machinery often turns to corruption which further
erodes the already weak democratic institutions that enable political clans and
their machinery in the first place. Democratic institutions like political par-
ties become unnecessary because of the dominance of local dynasty-driven
machinery, which further reinforces the dominance of local political dynas-
ties. In the process, this becomes a self-enforcing phenomenon until another
powerful clan usurps power.
To make our analysis more relevant to local political dynamics, our frame-
work explains both “fat” and “purely thin” political dynasties. Our goal with
this approach is to illustrate real life dynamics of the Filipino political clan,
which is often characterized by a mixture of relatives running simultaneously
and political positions held by a single family over time. Cruz (2014) identi-
fied two political strategies for politicians: the individually targeted strategies
and group-targeted strategies. Individual-targeted strategies involve the collu-
sion of vertically linked politicians to target overlapping constituencies which
leads to logistical improvements in elections and political patronage (Cruz
2014; Calvo and Murillo 2004). In the Philippine context, individual-targeted
election strategies are used by vertically connected governors, congressmen
and mayors using the local machinery. Group-targeted strategies, which is
used in developed democracies, involves the coherence of horizontally-linked
politicians like different mayors (Cruz 2014; Calvo and Murillo 2004). In the
Philippines, this translates to alliance and cooperation of mayors, and the rise
of pork barrel politics to synchronize pet projects (Cruz 2014). In framing politi-
cal dynasties, we focus our attention to the use of individual-targeted strategies
and their role in the mayor-centered local machinery. Vertical linkages through
kinship of politicians can lead to cost reductions and improvement of logistics
in elections, and alignment of policies and programs to target the same voters,
making patronage and clientelism stronger and easier to maintain.
Our theoretical framework is summarized by Figure 3. The three primary
goals of a politician are to: (i) perform well for his constituents; (ii) divert
resources for personal gain; and (iii) win and be reelected to continue his
power. We have no idea on how to identify the degree of these goals for each

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figure 3 Analytical Framework on the Local Dynastic Cycle
politician, but we believe that the type of incumbent falls within a contin-
uum of characteristics ranging from benevolence (development-oriented) to
malevolence (corruption). Due to practical difficulties, we treat the charac-
ter of a politician as an intervening variable between political dynasties and
economic development.
Every three years, local elective positions are filled through elections. In
each three-year period, political dynasties operate to fulfill the objectives that
maximizes the utility of each dynasty member. We coin the term local dynas-
tic cycle to describe this structure. During the period before elections, politi-
cians implement actions towards their goals. For benevolent mayors, they
invest in the development of their locality, while malevolent mayors plunder
municipal resources for their personal gain and to support their clientelistic
machinery.
In a municipality and in every local dynastic cycle, the municipal politicians
headed by the mayor set the policies and programs. The most influential deci-
sion of the municipal government is to set expenditures, which is the primary
driver of economic development in the local level that is controlled by local pol-
iticians. The municipal expenditures can be further divided between general
services, education, health, labor, housing, social and economic expenditures.

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Corruption plays an important role in the local dynastic cycle. However,

there is a complicated historical and social context of corruption pervasive
in public works contracts, nepotism, and underground activities that makes
it difficult to accurately estimate (De Dios and Ferrer 2000). Since we do not
know the benevolence of politicians, we treat corruption as an important
intervening variable. In our framework, graft and corruption by municipal pol-
iticians are used for personal gain, election funds, and for financing clientelis-
tic redistribution which diverts resources away for spending on welfare and
local development. Another effect, which cannot be explicitly modelled, is the
adverse effect of corruption on local institutions and business environment.
Rampant corruption negatively impacts economic growth through poor busi-
ness and political environment (Dridi 2013; Mo 2001; De Vaal and Ebben 2011)
Governors and congressmen enter the local dynastic cycle by providing
additional funds and programs to the municipality. By doing this, they expect
the mayor to reciprocate by endorsing them in the mayor-centered machinery
and the associated local clientelistic network. Governors, as the chief execu-
tive of the province, could give favor to the municipality through highly benefi-
cial provincial projects. Congressmen, together with their discretionary funds
(“pork barrel”), can directly implement their pet projects in the municipal-
ity. These external factors can further increase economic development if the
investments are productive, or they can further strengthen the local patron-
age network through clientelistic transfers and additional funds for municipal
election machinery.
Reelection in a vertically linked setup like Governor-Congressman-Mayor
(GCM) dynastic structure is heavily influenced by the decisions in the local
dynastic cycle. The possible strategies for municipal politicians are to plun-
der municipal resources to fund election campaigns, vote buying, and direct
clientelistic transfers, and to perform good by striving for development. If
the mayor and his allies are reelected, the chance of reelection for the gover-
nor and congressman also increases through the votes delivered by the local
machinery. Familial ties of the mayor to governor and congressman makes
individual-targeting strategies more effective because of the shared resources
and logistics, while relatives in other municipal offices makes corruption and
clientelism easier. This also means that for governors and congressmen who
compete for a larger constituency, the familial ties in the local dynastic cycles
are much more important.
We identify three important channels that link political clans and economic
development. First, reelection strategy through graft and corruption reduces
the actual resources invested for economic development (the “corruption”

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channel). While corruption for personal gains is an end goal itself, the substan-
tial costs of maintaining and financing the local clientelistic networks through
Kasal-Binyag-Libing strategy and vote buying means that political dynasties
exacerbate corruption. Each pocketed peso is a resource diverted away from
municipal programs, and consequently, another peso taken away from devel-
opment. More importantly, corruption undermines the democratic institu-
tions of a locality including justice, peace, order, contracts, and respect for
economic transactions, all of which are integral for business to thrive.
Second, consistent with the Kasal-Binyag-Libing strategy and related to
corruption, social expenditures used to maintain the patronage network
could have adverse effects on local development (the “clientelistic” channel).
Especially for smaller localities, social expenditures like free burial services
and free Christmas goodie bags are not necessarily the best use of funds. The
inefficiency of these public expenditures takes resources away from produc-
tive and welfare improving sectors like health and education. Moreover, the
resources used to maintain patronage relationships can also come from cor-
ruption, which also hinders the municipal economy.
Third, benevolent political dynasties invest in the development of the
municipality to ensure the reelection of mayor and the mayor centered
machinery (the “economic development” channel). In municipalities where
there is a strong political competition from another dynasty and clientelism is
very costly, this strategy is plausible. This channel could explain the findings of
Solon (2009) that politicians use development-oriented programs for reelec-
tion, and political clans behave like “stationary bandits” that pursue produc-
tive programs towards economic development.
It is important to emphasize that local development is affected by a lot
of other factors. Resource windfalls, geographic characteristics, culture, and
national government programs are some of the factors beyond the control of
the municipal government that substantially affect economic development.
For the rest of the paper, we address this problem empirically by controlling
for fiscal capacity and using a fixed effects model.
Within a local dynastic cycle, the important question is to know which
channel between political clans and economic development dominates. It
is easy to see the difference between a “fat” dynasty without any temporal
element and a “purely thin” dynasty. On one hand, for a fat dynasty without
reelection motives, the alignment of interests allows for extensive corruption
within the municipality and in external flows like provincial initiatives and
pork barrel projects. On the other hand, a purely thin dynasty without vertical
linkages carries the bulk of burden in maintaining clientelism. Hence, a good

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performance is an attractive way to achieve reelection in the face of political

competition. In this paper, we will analyze if any of the channels dominate by
looking at the economic performance of dynastic localities.
2.3 Nighttime Lights and Economic Activity

Luminosity from nighttime lights is generally accepted in the literature as a
reasonable proxy for economic development, especially in developing coun-
tries where income accounts or other economic indicators are either unreli-
able, unavailable at a desired sub-national level or unavailable across extended
time periods (Henderson, Storeygard, and Weil 2012; Costinot, Donaldson and
Smith 2016; Donaldson and Storeygard 2016; Bruederle and Hodler 2018).7 For
instance, Wang, Cheng, and Zhang (2012) found a very high correlation between
nighttime light luminosity and China’s regional poverty index. In applied work,
Michalopoulos and Papaioannou (2014) and Alesina, Michalopoulos, and
Papaioannou (2016) used nighttime light to examine how national institutions
affect living standards in smaller geographical units in Africa. Another study
by Hodler and Raschky (2014) used nighttime light and a panel of subnational
regions from different countries to show that the region of birth of a current
political leader had more intense luminosity, hence presenting evidence that
political leaders exhibit “regional favoritism”.
Nighttime light analysis is especially beneficial in developing countries
where there is lower level of economic activity, and consequently, electric con-
sumption. Bruederle and Hodler (2018), using geo-referenced Demographic
and Health Surveys (DHS) for 29 African countries, showed that there is a
strong association between nighttime lights and human development and
variation in nighttime lights can also explain a substantial share of variations of
these human development indicators. In the Philippines, Martinez (2017) finds
that there is a strong positive correlation between regional average household
expenditure and regional average luminosity and a strong negative correlation
between regional poverty incidence and nighttime lights luminosity. Hence, in
the absence of reliable local level data, nighttime lights can approximate for
socioeconomic indicators at the local level (Martinez 2017).
Using nighttime lights, we can implement a general analysis of our theo-
retical framework. The variation in luminosity between dynastic localities and
non-dynastic localities proxy for the differences in their economic develop-
ment. By identifying these differences, together with the inclusion of social
expenditures and economic expenditures, we can infer a general idea of
7 Kulkarni, Haynes, Stough, and Riggle (2011), on the other hand, review the limitations of
luminosity as a proxy for economic development.

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whether the corruption channel, clientelistic channel, and economic develop-

ment channel dominates a locality ruled by political clans in a local dynastic
cycle. However, an important caveat in our analysis of nighttime lights and
political dynasties is that finer channels cannot be identified due to the sim-
plification of economic development to an aggregated measure of luminosity.
While this is indeed true, the goal of this paper to show the general effect of
political dynasties on economic development is not diminished by the men-
tioned limitation.
3 Data
3.1 DMSP-OLS Nighttime Lights Time Series

Our main economic variable is the nighttime light data from the Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS)
which is created and compiled by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). In this dataset, we utilize the variant Average Visible,
Stable Lights, and Cloud Free Coverages. The data is adjusted for background
noise and ephemeral lights.8 The pixels have relative values ranging from 0 to
63 indicating nighttime light intensity and each represent 30 arc second grid.
The system spans from -180 to 180 degrees longitude and -65 to 75 degrees lati-
tude, which includes the Philippines. In our study, we aggregate luminosity
data from the pixel level to the respective observational unit (city or munici-
pality) by averaging the pixel values in the area and assigning this value to the
whole area.
Since the Philippines holds local elections every three years, we took the
average luminosity of the three years from when elections are held to repre-
sent luminosity in an election year. For instance, for the election year 2004,
we took the average luminosity of 2004, 2005 and 2006. We then assembled
a panel of luminosity data for the election years 2004, 2007, and 2010 for 1,129
cities and municipalities in the Philippines. Figure 4 shows a nighttime image
for three areas with increasing levels of luminosity: the figure on the left is
from Mamasapano, Maguindanao which is a poor municipality in Mindanao;
the figure in the center is from Cagayan de Oro, a progressive city also in
Mindanao; the rightmost figure is from the City of Manila, the de jure seat of
political power in the Philippines.
8 This takes away luminosity from temporary events such as fires. Hence, this includes only
luminosity from areas with persistent lightning.

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figure 4 An example of a nighttime image of Philippine

cities and a municipality
Note: Left image is Mamasapano, Maguindanao
(Mindanao). Center image is Cagayan de Oro City
(Mindanao). Right image is the City of Manila
(National Capital Region)
Source: DMSP-OLS
An alternative measure for economic development is Small Area Estimates

(SAE) of poverty collected by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). Even if,
in general, lower poverty is associated with higher levels of economic develop-
ment and vice-versa, nighttime lights have some tangible advantages as a viable
alternative measure for economic development. First, our controls like income
and expenditure shares do not directly translate to lesser poverty. Depending
on the corruption level of a locality and the competency of administration, the
speed of inclusive growth could be slow. There may be other aspects of devel-
opment that change faster than changes in poverty levels. For example, infra-
structure development can be captured by our nighttime light measure, but
infrastructure only affects poverty after some lag time. In this paper, we want
to identify the general effect of political clans in economic development with-
out considering how inclusive this development is to the poor. Second, SAE
is only produced every three years. Past SAE is produced for the years 2000,
2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, and 2015. The measure is estimated in the middle of a
political term, a full year before elections. Considering the time of implemen-
tation and adjustment, these years might not necessarily closely represent the
performance of the local government in a term. Third, SAE is estimated by PSA
using the Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (ELL) poverty mapping method of the
World Bank. The main criticism with this approach is that small between-area
variability is neglected by assuming homogeneity of the locality and does not
require linkages between household datasets (Das 2016; Das and Chambers
2017; Das and Haslett 2019). Consequently, the poverty estimates may become
biased at a very disaggregated geographical level. This concern motivates this
paper to use alternative economic measures at the local level.

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3.2 Political Dynasty Measures

Our political dynasty dataset is based on the family name identification
approach (Querubin 2012, 2016). Politicians with the same family names and
maiden names with politicians from currently or previously elected in an
administrative unit is considered part of a political dynasty.9 This dataset is
maintained by the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Center.
Our study explores three definitions of whether a city or municipality has
a political dynasty. First, we use the approach of Mendoza et al. (2016) where
they computed the proportion of dynastic politicians in a locality. For our
study, we measure for each administrative unit i its dynastic share, DSi, by:
I im + I iv + Σ i1= n I ic (1)
DSi =
2+n
where
I ik = 1 if a politician in the kth elective post is in a dynasty, 0 otherwise
The variable I ik , for k = {m, v, c} is an indicator variable that takes on value 1

if the politician of elective post k (mayor, vice-mayor and councilor, respec-
tively) belongs to a dynasty. Hence, I im = 1 , I iv = 1 , and I ic = 1 if the mayor, vice-
mayor and councilor, respectively, are elected in municipality i is in a political
dynasty. In short, our dynastic share is the ratio of the number of dynastic
elected officials to the total number of elected officials in a city or municipality.
The second definition of whether a unit has a political dynasty is to create
a dummy variable that takes on value of 1 if the mayor is part of a dynasty. The
simple dynastic mayor dummy does not distinguish if the mayor is related to
the governor, congressman, vice-mayor and councilors.
The third definition of a dynasty is a dummy variable that takes on value of
1 if the mayor has familial ties to the governor and congressman. We use three
different versions of this definition. First, we explore a governor-congressman-
mayor dummy (GCM) to represent a political dynasty that occupies the three
most important positions for municipality development. Second, a governor-
mayor (GM) dummy teases out the possibility of a political clan dominant in
9 However, kinship is not automatically established through the same last name. We address
this issue using the fact that in 1849, Governor General Narciso Claveria y Zaldua assigned
different surnames to Philippine towns, effectively making family names unique in each
locality.

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local development even without the strong connection to the representative

of the legislative district that encompasses the municipality. Third, we explore
a congressman-mayor (CM) dummy to test if the flows from discretionary
funds of the representative to the municipality because of the familial links
between the two leads to a substantial effect in local development. In other
specifications, we distinguish whether a mayor is part of a “fat” or a “purely
thin” dynasty.10
3.3 Other Controls

We control for the fiscal capacity of the city or municipality by including
income of a locality collected by the Bureau of Local Government Finance
(BLGF). Fiscal capacity of a municipality is a strong explanatory variable for
variations in economic development. Even if revenue generating activities
are heterogeneous across LGUs, the bulk of income is from Internal Revenue
Allotment (IRA) while non-IRA income is dependent on the level of economic
development as the revenue base. IRA is the annual share of local governments
out of the proceeds from national internal revenue taxes. It is a formula-based
block grant that depends on several dimensions such as land area and popula-
tion. By controlling for income, we also control for the urban effects that night-
time lights capture. Solon et al. (2009) used IRA to control for the effect of
urbanization, but we expand on this by using total (IRA plus non-IRA) income
since non-IRA income like business permits and property taxes is normally
higher in urban environments. We also control for the square of income to
control for the decreasing rate of the link between income levels and economic
development. This also captures the effect of the decreasing rate of increase in
electricity consumption as income increases, e.g., more advanced electronic
devices are not necessarily light emitters and basic nighttime street lighting in
a municipality is unlikely to double when income doubles.
We also include the share of expenditures (to total expenditures) on eco-
nomic services and social programs as used by Solon et al. (2009) to take
account of the last two channels in our theoretical framework that are influ-
enced by expenditures. It is reasonable to assume that the share of economic
services expenditures, which includes local infrastructure and development
expenditures, is directly related to the degree of development programs of the
10 An elected official in a “purely thin” dynasty has no family members in other concurrent
elective post and they currently hold an elected post inherited from a family member. For
instance, the Binay clan is not a purely thin dynasty because, although the mayoral post
was inherited from a Binay (e.g. Jejomar to Junjun), several family members hold elective
posts simultaneously (e.g. Junjun as mayor and Abby as congressman). Moreover, “fat”
political dynasties have more than two family members concurrently occupying elected
positions.

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locality. Normally, this corresponds to the economic development channel.

However, a counterintuitive effect on development implies that investments
are not productive or corruption is dominant, which could be evidence of the
dominance of the corruption channel. To know and control the effect of cli-
entelistic redistribution and Kasal-Binyag-Libing strategy, we also include the
share of social expenditures to know the effect of the second channel. Social
expenditures of a locality include expenditures to alleviate poverty, help hand-
icapped individuals, senior welfare, and other expenditures on recreational,
religious, and social activities. By taking account of the second and third chan-
nel, the effect of our dynastic variable corresponds to the effect of the corrup-
tion channel and other political dynamics not modelled in this paper.
For other municipality characteristics and other geography-tied factors that
affect economic development, we use the panel two-way fixed effects model
to remove their influence on the relationship of dynasty measures and eco-
nomic development. Most of these variables like geography, natural resources,
basic infrastructure, the expanse of the road network, and peace and order
conditions are reasonably static in a three-year period. Any small changes in
these variables and other heterogenous time-varying confounder variables are
expected to be captured by the fiscal capacity of the LGUs which are sensitive
to these conditions.
3.4 Summary Statistics

Table 1 reports the means and standard deviations of the variables we use.
The first column reports statistics for cities and municipalities in the National
Capital Region (NCR), and the next three columns are for the three major
island groups in the Philippines. Clearly, NCR is the brightest since it is the
economic and political epicenter of the country. Municipalities and cities from
Luzon are also more developed on average, possibly owing to its proximity to
NCR. Visayas is, on average, poorer than Luzon, but not as poor as Mindanao.
In NCR, the proportion of mayors from a dynasty is relatively high but the
dynastic share is low compared to other regions. Outside NCR, the dynastic
share is higher, and the vice mayors and councilors are more likely to be part of
a dynasty compared to NCR localities.
Tables 2 and 3 restrict the sample to cities and municipalities, respectively.
There is an unmistakable difference between economic activity and fiscal
capacity between cities and municipalities, especially those outside NCR.
There is also a higher proportion of politicians from a dynasty in cities com-
pared to municipalities. This is an indication that the economic effect of politi-
cal dynasties may be nuanced depending on whether it is ensconced in a city
or a municipality.

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table 1 Summary statistics: all cities and municipalities
NCR Luzon Visayas Mindanao

(without NCR)
Nighttime light luminosity 60.352 4.865 2.26 0.924

(3.590) (9.349) (5.660) (1.829)
Dynastic share 0.115 0.253 0.245 0.204
(0.081) (0.177) (0.162) (0.170)
Mayor from a dynasty 0.471 0.399 0.445 0.433
(0.504) (0.490) (0.497) (0.496)
Vice Mayor/Councilor from 0.667 0.827 0.843 0.738
a dynasty (0.476) (0.379) (0.364) (0.440)
IRA (million pesos) 627.156 67.589 69.154 82.404
(539.224) (76.921) (113.868) (150.247)
Note: Standard deviations are in parentheses.
table 2 Summary statistics: cities only
NCR Luzon Visayas Mindanao

(without NCR)
Nighttime light luminosity 60.425 14.115 10.263 4.087

(3.284) (13.542) (13.983) (3.410)
Dynastic share 0.109 0.31 0.261 0.171
(0.076) (0.165) (0.142) (0.106)
Mayor from a dynasty 0.5 0.46 0.574 0.467
(0.506) (0.500) (0.497) (0.502)
Vice Mayor/Councilor from 0.63 0.942 0.935 0.848
a dynasty (0.488) (0.235) (0.247) (0.361)
IRA (million pesos) 687.368 295.166 346.913 426.638
(534.026) (137.557) (243.594) (386.840)
In summary, we use information from various sources covering the period

from 2004 to 2013. We assembled economic-related data, election data, and
local finance and expense data. While the information we have is sufficient
to carry our analysis, we acknowledge that several important variables such

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table 3 Summary statistics: municipalities only
Luzon Visayas Mindanao
Nighttime light luminosity 4.208 1.492 0.653

(8.612) (3.127) (1.308)
Dynastic share 0.249 0.244 0.207
(0.177) (0.164) (0.174)
Mayor from a dynasty 0.395 0.433 0.431
(0.489) (0.496) (0.495)
Vice Mayor/Councilor from a dynasty 0.819 0.834 0.729
(0.385) (0.372) (0.445)
IRA (million pesos) 51.427 42.513 52.889
(32.573) (21.217) (27.696)
as corruption and the like are unavailable. Therefore, we employ an empirical

strategy that mitigates some of the effects of these data limitations.
4 Empirical Strategy
A key concern in examining the consequences of political dynasties is that it

is not exogenous: areas that are ruled by dynasties may also share character-
istics that drive economic development. We deal with this by including fixed
effects that take advantage of location-specific variation in political dynasties
over time. More importantly, we have no reason to believe that the existence
of political dynasties is directly affected by economic development since they
exist in the richest LGUs, e.g., the Binays of Makati, to the poorest municipali-
ties, e.g., the Ecleos of Dinagat Islands.
In this paper, we estimate the following general specification to know which
channel in the local dynastic cycle: for luminosity Lightit of city/municipality i
in election year t, we have
Lightit = β0 + β1 Dynastyit + β2 LNonNCRit + β3 Visayasit + β4 Mindanaoit + β5

Incit + β6 Inc2it + β7 Dynastyit × LNonNCRit + β8 Dynastyit × Visayasit
+ β9 Dynastyit × Mindanaoit + β10 Economicit + β11 Socialit + β12
Dynastyit × Economicit + β13 Dynastyit × Socialit + γi + τt + εit
(2)

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where Dynastyit is the dynastic measure. As mentioned in the previous sec-

tion, we have five indicators for the presence of dynasties: dynastic share,
mayor dummies, and various combinations of governor-congressman-mayor
dummies. In other specifications we distinguish whether the mayor belongs
to a fat or purely thin dynasty. LNonNCRit is a dummy variable if the city or
municipality is located in Luzon but not in the National Capital Region (NCR);
Visayasit is a dummy variable if the city or municipality is located in the
Visayas; Mindanaoit is a dummy variable if the city or municipality is located
in Mindanao. We also include interaction terms of Dynastyit and the island
dummies. Incit is the level of income of the city or municipality; Incit2 is the
square of income; Economicit is the share of economic service expenditures;
Socialit is the share of expenditures on social programs; γi is the time-invariant
municipality/city fixed effects; τt is time fixed effects; and εit is the error term.
All standard errors are clustered at the municipality/city-level to allow for any
arbitrary correlation within them.
In order to examine whether there are different effects for cities, in some
specifications we restricted the sample to include only municipalities and dis-
card all observations in NCR as well as all cities outside NCR. In some specifica-
tions, we also use SAE as an alternate dependent variable.
5 Results and Discussion
The results of our fixed effects panel OLS estimation using all cities and munic-
ipalities are summarized in Table 4. The first five columns show the regression
if we do not control for income, municipal fixed effects, and time fixed effects.
For our dynasty measure, columns 1 and 6 use dynastic mayor dummies, col-
umns 2 and 7 use dynastic share, columns 3 and 8 use governor-congressman-
mayor dummies, columns 4 and 9 use governor-mayor dummies, and columns
5 and 10 uses congressman-mayor dummies. Looking at the first five columns,
there is no statistically significant variation in economic development between
dynastic and non-dynastic localities except when we use GCM and CM dummy.
In GCM, Luzon dynasties lead to lower economic development, and Visayas
and Mindanao dynasties appear to have a positive effect on economic devel-
opment. The opposite is true when the dynastic measure is CM. However, all
these results lose significance when we include IRA and the fixed effects. This
suggests that the results are being driven by municipality/city level character-
istics correlated with dynasties.
When we control for important variables to economic development like
income and its squared value, expenditure share of economic services, and

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table 4 Regression results using nighttime light luminosity as dependent variable (municipalities and cities)
Dynasty Measure
Mayor Dynastic GCM GM CM Mayor Dynastic GCM GM CM

Dummy Share Dummy Dummy Dummy Dummy Share Dummy Dummy Dummy
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Dynasty –0.118 –1.556 –2.882*** –0.269 6.942*** 1.270** 0.486 1.040* 0.437 0.302
(1.266) (5.506) (0.861) (1.431) (2.240) (0.601) (4.758) (0.541) (0.595) (0.533)
Luzon*Dynasty 0.972 8.412 –1.227** –1.664
(1.033) (5.145) (0.540) (4.667)
Visayas*Dynasty 0.554 3.119 1.942** –0.848 –6.505*** –1.159** –1.153 –0.112 0.182 0.338
(1.306) (5.555) (0.953) (1.480) (2.337) (0.582) (4.727) (0.385) (0.551) (0.433)
Mindanao*Dynasty 0.143 1.127 2.613*** 0.052 –6.208*** –1.393** –2.201 0.209 –0.121 0.029
(1.270) (5.513) (0.886) (1.451) (2.301) (0.575) (4.717) (0.374) (0.538) (0.459)
Income 0.006*** 0.006*** 0.006*** 0.006*** 0.006***
(0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001)
Political Dynasties and Economic Development
Income Squared –0.00000*** –0.00000*** –0.00000*** –0.00000*** –0.00000***

(0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000)

Economic –0.522 –1.198* –0.764* –0.772* –0.653
(0.526) (0.649) (0.460) (0.463) (0.468)
Social –4.028*** –7.097*** –3.638*** –3.607*** –3.709***
(1.218) (1.680) (1.026) (1.037) (1.065)
Economic*Dynasty –0.518 2.030 –6.980*** –2.427 –3.101
(0.643) (1.904) (2.278) (2.520) (3.000)
Social*Dynasty 0.894 13.316*** –2.112 –2.874 2.124
(1.451) (5.130) (2.367) (2.859) (2.503)
239
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table 4 Regression results using nighttime light luminosity as dependent variable (municipalities and cities) (cont.)
240
Dynasty Measure

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Observations 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523
Adjusted R2 0.4424 0.4502 0.06092 0.06057 0.07068 0.9854 0.9907 0.9853 0.9853 0.9853
Major Island Dummies Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Municipal Fixed Effects No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Time Fixed Effects No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Note: *significant at the 10% level; **significant at the 5% level; *** significant at the 1% level.

Garces, Jandoc and Lu
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expenditure share of social services, and when we implement two-way fixed

effects model to remove bias from time-invariant confounders not included
in the regression, several important results appear. First, dynastic localities
have a significant difference to non-dynastic localities when we use the sim-
ple dynastic mayor dummy and dynastic share. Dynasties in non-NCR Luzon,
Visayas, and Mindanao LGUs lead to lower economic development compared
to non-dynastic cities in NCR when we used a simple dynastic mayor dummy
(Table 4, column 6), while effect is insignificant if we used dynastic share (col-
umn 7). For GCM, GM and CM dummies, there is no statistically significant
variation between dynastic and non-dynastic localities except in column 8,
where we find a generally positive effect on economic development which
might be driven by dynastic cities. We take the weak results between simple
dynastic mayor dummy and GCM, and the lack of significance in other dynas-
tic measures as evidence that no channel is dominating in connecting political
dynasties and economic development. The important factor in these results
is the inclusion of rich and developed cities in our analysis. The result that
dynastic localities outside Metro Manila have lower economic development
is expected and trivial. A logical explanation for the contradicting findings is
simply because highly urbanized cities drive the results due to their dispropor-
tionate influence that masks the dynamics of poorer localities.
Second, even if the results on dynasties are weak, we confirm that fiscal
capacity as measured by income is a strong determinant of economic develop-
ment. In fact, a 1 million peso increase in income leads to 0.017 units increase
in our luminosity measure, which is very significant considering that the range
of values is from 0 to 63 units. As expected, we also confirm the hypothesis that
economic development is increasing in income at a decreasing rate.
Finally, including the shares of economic and social expenditures provides
several insights. In most models, we see that an increase in the share of eco-
nomic expenditures leads to lower economic outcomes. Especially in GCM
structure (see interaction term of Economic and Dynasty in Table 4, column 8)
where checks and balances are weak, the negative effect of an increase in expen-
diture share is very large and significant. This is consistent with our hypothesis
that under the case where the governor, congressman and mayor are from the
same family, the combined electoral strategy of the vertically linked politicians
leads to more corruption due to lower competition and weaker local institu-
tions to check the power of the clan. Consequently, economic services expen-
diture is not necessarily productive as corruption becomes more rampant.
We also found evidence that social expenditure, which is highly related to
Kasal-Binyag-Libing strategy, is associated with lower economic development.
This suggests that for poorer localities, mayors are more inclined to implement
less important social welfare policies like fiestas and free burial services, even

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if it will not yield substantial economic returns to LGU expenditures. In poorer

localities, the social expenditures are used as an electoral weapon to maintain
clientelism. However, we do not find a difference between dynastic and non-
dynastic LGUs in the use of social expenditures except when dynastic share
is used, suggesting that this strategy is pursued regardless of familial connec-
tions in the LGU. On the positive coefficient in the interaction between social
expenditure and dynastic share, the possible explanation, to be explored by
future research, is that richer localities with extensive political clans can afford
to spend more on social welfare programs to maintain their costlier patronage
network due to their dynastic size.
In order to address the concern that cities may have their own dynamism,
and that dynasties in poorer municipalities may have a more pernicious effect
on economic development, we perform the same analysis but restrict the sam-
ple by discarding NCR and all cities outside NCR. Table 5 shows that the results
from the full sample when a simple dynastic mayor dummy is used washes
out. In other words, rich localities drive the results in the prior models. With
respect to other dynastic measures, the results are similar. Generally, there
is no difference between the economic development in dynastic and non-
dynastic municipalities, regardless if they are in Luzon, Visayas or Mindanao.
An exception to this result is the negative effect of the dynastic share of Luzon
political dynasties to economic development when we use dynastic share
(Table 5, column 7).
Similar to the full sample, we find that higher share of economic expendi-
tures leads to lower economic development. The result is more substantial in
municipalities where mayor, governor, and congressman belong to the same
clan. The stronger hold of the family in the municipalities means that higher
economic expenditures do not automatically translate to improvements in
localities, suggesting that there is financial waste due to either corruption or
inefficiency. Our results also show similar dynamics in terms of social expendi-
tures. Weak institutions of checks and balances, coupled with a long history of
conflict, may have imbued local mayors, which are often local strongmen, with
disproportionate formal and informal political power that may have stifled
economic activity (Abinales 2000; Abinales and Amoroso 2017).
Our next question is if there is a channel that links political dynasties and
economic development when we differentiate fat mayoral dynasties and purely
thin mayoral dynasties. In Table 6, the first four columns do not include the
variables for income, economic, and social expenditure shares, and state and
time effects. For our dynasty measure, columns 1 and 5 use fat dynastic mayor
dummies where the variable is equal to 1 if the mayor belongs to a fat dynasty,
and 0 otherwise; columns 2 and 6 use fat dynastic share measure which is the
proportion of elected officials within a locality that belong to a fat dynasty to

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table 5 Regression results using nighttime light luminosity as dependent variable (municipalities only)
Dynasty measure

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Dynasty 0.920** 6.442*** –3.480*** 1.304 1.259 0.026 –1.250** 0.149 0.018 –0.254
(0.425) (1.136) (0.319) (1.913) (1.509) (0.140) (0.527) (0.374) (0.612) (0.530)
Visayas*Dynasty –0.441 –4.720*** 3.003*** –1.800 –1.456 0.029 0.592 0.331 0.361 0.353
(0.468) (1.247) (0.411) (1.940) (1.524) (0.116) (0.410) (0.306) (0.519) (0.427)
Mindanao*Dynasty –0.953** –6.629*** 3.315*** –1.340 –0.630 –0.109 –0.197 0.806 –0.042 0.385
(0.433) (1.162) (0.346) (1.930) (1.592) (0.101) (0.394) (0.562) (0.583) (0.539)
Income 0.017*** 0.016*** 0.017*** 0.017*** 0.017***
(0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004)
Income Squared 0.00001 0.00001* 0.00001 0.00001 0.00001
(0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000)
Economic –0.694 –0.892 –0.797** –0.821** –0.746*

(0.461) (0.597) (0.390) (0.393) (0.398)

Social –2.742** –6.181*** –2.549*** –2.523*** –2.600***
(1.163) (1.639) (0.961) (0.962) (1.007)
Economic*Dynasty –0.229 0.882 –3.801* –0.622 –1.560
(0.582) (1.749) (2.112) (2.427) (3.550)
Social*Dynasty 0.497 14.158*** –0.111 –2.015 1.727
(1.369) (4.461) (2.090) (3.231) (2.321)
243
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244
table 5 Regression results using nighttime light luminosity as dependent variable (municipalities only) (cont.)
Dynasty measure

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Observations 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137
Adjusted R2 0.06369 0.07564 0.06201 0.06147 0.06182 0.9782 0.9784 0.9782 0.9782 0.9783
Major Island Dummies Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Municipal Fixed Effects No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

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Table 6 Regression results using nighttime light luminosity as dependent variable and distinguishing between fat and purely thin dynasties
(municipalities and cities)
Dynasty measure
Fat Dynasty Fat Dynastic Purely Thin Purely Thin Fat Dynasty Fat Dynastic Purely Thin Purely Thin
Dummy Share Dynasty Dummy Dynastic Share Dummy Share Dynasty Dummy Dynastic Share
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
Dynasty –0.083 0.353 1.032** –0.143 1.151* 0.252 –0.047 0.131

(1.256) (1.542) (0.425) (0.536) (0.641) (1.033) (0.136) (0.162)
Luzon*Dynasty 0.786 0.173 –1.172** –0.083
(1.026) (1.202) (0.583) (0.978)
Visayas*Dynasty 0.673 –1.547 –0.488 –0.463 –1.069* –0.296 0.101 –0.087
(1.297) (1.565) (0.468) (0.566) (0.617) (1.002) (0.109) (0.119)
Mindanao* 0.112 –0.499 –1.079** –0.016 –1.320** –0.385 –0.060 –0.215*
Dynasty
(1.261) (1.547) (0.434) (0.542) (0.610) (1.000) (0.098) (0.119)
Income 0.006*** 0.006*** 0.016*** 0.017***

(0.001) (0.001) (0.004) (0.004)

Income Squared –0.00000*** –0.00000*** 0.00001 0.00001
(0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000)
Economic –0.504 –0.751 –0.638 –0.711*
(0.522) (0.475) (0.455) (0.403)
Social –4.361*** –3.494*** –2.994** –2.479**
(1.206) (1.110) (1.167) (1.073)
Economic*Dynasty –0.527 –0.062 –0.310 –0.793
245
(0.639) (0.683) (0.571) (0.672)
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246
Table 6 Regression results using nighttime light luminosity as dependent variable and distinguishing between fat and purely thin dynasties (cont.)
Dynasty measure
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
Social*Dynasty 1.481 –0.179 0.987 0.428

(1.418) (1.788) (1.344) (1.519)
Observations 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523
Adjusted R2 0.4422 0.442 0.06434 0.06154 0.9854 0.9853 0.9782 0.9782
Major Island Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Dummies
Municipal Fixed No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Effects
Time Fixed Effects No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes

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table 7 Regression results using small area estimates of poverty as dependent variable (municipalities and cities)
Dynasty measure

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Dynasty –4.707*** –26.826*** –0.275 –4.028* –3.455** –2.171 –6.419 –9.004* –0.695 –2.654
(1.352) (4.237) (3.333) (2.240) (1.527) (1.615) (6.375) (5.359) (2.996) (1.895)
Non-NCR Luzon 2.078*** 12.043*** 0.993 2.771
*Dynasty (0.796) (3.055) (0.983) (5.101)
Visayas*Dynasty 3.539** 30.885*** –3.859 1.378 0.722 0.392 0.659 0.489 1.426 1.094
(1.536) (4.789) (4.103) (3.022) (2.117) (1.449) (6.077) (2.911) (2.467) (1.591)
Mindanao*Dynasty 7.534*** 41.186*** –0.099 –0.380 1.813 2.753* 19.382*** –5.997 –1.639 1.623
(1.587) (4.899) (4.592) (3.890) (3.090) (1.540) (6.527) (5.503) (2.732) (2.637)
Income 0.0002 0.0004 0.0003 0.0003 0.0004
(0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001)
Income Squared 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

(0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00000)

Economic 1.031 –2.100 2.487 2.676 2.393
(3.802) (4.804) (3.325) (3.341) (3.285)
Social 17.567*** 18.868** 17.820*** 17.699*** 16.351***
(6.731) (8.530) (5.502) (5.545) (5.514)
Economic*Dynasty 3.399 11.159 48.224 –1.886 8.899
(4.424) (13.411) (36.614) (18.019) (11.037)
Social*Dynasty 0.534 –2.811 6.331 –5.879 13.556
247
(8.773) (24.524) (26.009) (21.477) (15.704)
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248
table 7 Regression results using small area estimates of poverty as dependent variable (municipalities and cities) (cont.)
Dynasty measure

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Observations 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523
Adjusted R2 0.3047 0.3176 0.2843 0.2851 0.2854 0.809 0.8117 0.8088 0.8085 0.8086
Major Island Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Dummies
Municipal Fixed No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Effects

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table 8 Regression results using small area estimates of poverty as independent variable (municipalities only)
Dynasty measure

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Dynasty –2.635*** –14.173*** 5.082 –3.162 –0.396 –1.619 –4.629 –14.421* –3.628 –3.466
(0.655) (1.758) (4.522) (2.911) (1.774) (1.001) (3.114) (7.664) (4.056) (2.483)
Visayas*Dynasty 1.766* 19.455*** –10.106* –0.456 –0.656 –0.625 –1.773 3.068 2.627 2.027
(0.989) (2.844) (5.212) (3.595) (2.437) (0.856) (2.780) (4.003) (2.818) (2.121)
Mindanao*Dynasty 5.712*** 27.445*** –5.329 0.975 –0.439 1.842* 17.741*** –2.374 –0.011 4.135
(1.040) (2.989) (5.392) (4.178) (3.337) (1.043) (3.639) (6.918) (3.258) (3.208)
Income –0.035*** –0.036*** –0.036*** –0.036*** –0.037***
(0.010) (0.010) (0.010) (0.010) (0.010)
Income Squared 0.00004*** 0.00004*** 0.00004*** 0.00004*** 0.00004***
(0.00001) (0.00001) (0.00001) (0.00001) (0.00001)
Economic 1.016 –2.267 3.514 3.649 3.448

(4.187) (5.308) (3.598) (3.614) (3.532)

Social 18.402** 20.943** 20.389*** 20.001*** 18.617***
(7.248) (9.469) (5.995) (6.000) (6.017)
Economic*Dynasty 5.551 14.171 64.280 3.506 9.349
(5.085) (14.598) (47.204) (22.921) (14.196)
Social*Dynasty 5.193 1.684 23.011 18.607 16.279
(9.586) (26.884) (31.678) (29.688) (18.939)
249
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250
table 8 Regression results using small area estimates of poverty as independent variable (municipalities only) (cont.)
Dynasty measure

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Observations 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137 4137
Adjusted R2 0.3077 0.3198 0.3028 0.3029 0.3024 0.7908 0.794 0.7905 0.7901 0.7905
Major Island Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Dummies
Municipal Fixed No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Effects

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table 9 Regression results using small area estimates of poverty as dependent variable and distinguishing between fat and purely thin dynasties
(municipalities and cities)
Dynasty measure
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
Dynasty –4.781*** –2.479 –2.917*** –0.710 –1.349 –1.093 –0.941 0.843

(1.352) (1.855) (0.654) (0.916) (1.490) (1.885) (0.977) (1.301)
Luzon*Dynasty 2.074*** 1.000 0.788 1.738*
(0.797) (1.078) (0.871) (1.050)
Visayas*Dynasty 3.447** 3.634* 1.896* 1.280 0.291 2.814* –0.523 1.177
(1.536) (2.085) (0.989) (1.330) (1.330) (1.596) (0.815) (1.032)
Mindanao*Dynasty 6.834*** 3.826* 4.999*** 2.177 2.987** 5.880*** 2.338** 4.597***
(1.592) (2.146) (1.048) (1.383) (1.466) (1.725) (1.035) (1.214)
Income 0.0002 0.0004 –0.035*** –0.036***
(0.001) (0.001) (0.010) (0.010)

Income Squared 0.000 0.000 0.00004*** 0.00004***

(0.00000) (0.00000) (0.00001) (0.00001)
Economic 1.472 3.566 1.563 4.866
(3.770) (3.416) (4.174) (3.688)
Social 20.829*** 17.845*** 21.987*** 20.813***
(7.031) (5.772) (7.668) (6.281)
Economic*Dynasty 2.306 –7.698 4.233 –9.769
(4.199) (5.598) (4.834) (6.725)
251
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252
table 9 Regression results using small area estimates of poverty as dependent variable and distinguishing between fat and purely thin dynasties (cont.)
Dynasty measure
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
Social*Dynasty –6.037 –4.366 –2.182 –5.851

(8.841) (12.180) (9.644) (13.075)
Observations 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523 4523

Adjusted R2 0.304 0.3005 0.3072 0.3027 0.8092 0.8098 0.791 0.7918
Major Island Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Dummies
Municipal Fixed No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Effects
Time Fixed Effects No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL

41 (2020) 215–261
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the total number of elected officials (mayor, vice-mayor, and councilors); col-
umns 3 and 7 use purely thin dynastic mayor dummies where the variable is
equal to 1 if the mayor belongs to a purely thin dynasty, and 0 otherwise; and
columns 4 and 8 use purely thin dynastic share measure which is the propor-
tion of elected officials within a locality that belong to a purely thin dynasty
to the total number of elected officials (mayor, vice-mayor, and councilors).
Without controlling for fixed effects, the results are inconclusive except for
purely thin dynastic mayor measure. When we use fixed effects and controlled
for fiscal capacity, the results for fat dynasties are the same as the results in
our simple dynastic measure. Dynastic localities outside NCR have lower eco-
nomic development compared to the rich cities of Metro Manila. But when we
use dynastic share, the results are inconclusive. For purely thin dynasties we
found no evidence that they significantly affect economic development. An
interesting result is that fat and purely thin dynasties lead to lower economic
development for Mindanao, albeit for different dynastic measures (columns 5
and 8 of Table 6, variable “Mindanao*Dynasty”). The channel is difficult to pin
down, but since mayors wield disproportionate influence in a fat dynasty, then
it is possible that the corruption and clientelistic channels dominate.
As a robustness check, we use PSA’s small area estimates as an alternative
dependent variable. In doing so, we tease out what the connection is between
political dynasties and poverty incidence at the local level, a closely linked
but different measure in relation to economic development. Table 7 presents
the regression results using the full sample and Table 8 shows the result using
municipalities only. This new set of results is not significantly different from
the models with nighttime lights. Generally, there is no robust link between
political dynasties and poverty incidence, especially when we control for fixed
effects, income, and expenditure (columns 6 to 10 of Tables 7 and 8). Moreover,
social expenditures share is associated with higher poverty incidence, and this
is not different between dynastic and non-dynastic LGUs, which affirms our
earlier narrative. The main difference from other models when we investigate
using poverty incidence is that Mindanao dynastic shares lead to higher pov-
erty incidence in both samples (column 7 of Tables 7 and 8). Since this result is
not robust for our other dynastic measures, we caution on interpreting this as
a sign of poverty-increasing effects of dynasties in Mindanao.
In Table 9, we again explore the difference between fat and purely thin
dynasties, but this time we use small area poverty incidence as our dependent
variable. We also find an inconclusive relationship between dynasties and pov-
erty incidence regardless of type. What we consistently find is that Mindanao
fat and purely thin dynasties leads to higher poverty incidence. Additionally,

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social expenditures have a positive relationship to poverty incidence, and this

is not dependent on the familial ties of politicians.
Taken together, our findings suggest that the economic outcomes of politi-
cal dynasties in the Philippines are more nuanced than those found in recent
literature. There is no single channel that clearly dominates the narrative: cor-
ruption and clientelism is present in both dynastic and non-dynastic locali-
ties. For instance, Mendoza et al. (2016) finds that dynasties worsen poverty
in areas outside Luzon. However, by using data with finer-grained adminis-
trative units, we show that some of these results, especially in Visayas, may
be driven by municipality/city level characteristics correlated with dynasties.
What we do find is that when the governor, mayor, and congressman is part of
the same family, the higher share of economic expenditure leads to lower eco-
nomic development, implying that the lack of check and balance leads to cor-
ruption and unproductive investments. Another important result is when we
investigate poverty incidence instead of economic development (as proxied by
luminosity), there is a robust negative effect of political dynasties in Mindanao
when the mayor is part of a dynasty, but not in other regions. To some extent,
this supports the results of Mendoza et al. (2016) that there is a geographical
disparity in the influence of political dynasties on poverty. They argue that this
stems from institutional differences, Luzon being more developed due to its
spillovers from the National Capital Region, which is the center of education,
research and development, and the seat of government. Our results highlight
the importance of the interaction and self-reinforcing nature of weak “insti-
tutions” (Rodrik, Subramanian, and Trebbi 2004), historical accidents that
exacerbate conflict (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012), and the skewed distribu-
tion of political power that preclude check and balance (Bragança, Ferraz, and
Rios 2015).
6 Conclusion
Political dynasties, by limiting political competition, are thought to exacer-

bate corruption, poverty, and abuse of power. By using luminosity of night-
time lights as an indicator of economic activity, we have demonstrated that,
overall, there is a weak, non-robust relationship between political dynasties
and the economic development of Philippine cities and municipalities.11 Using
11 Our research only controls for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity at the city/
municipality level. While we find that controlling for these makes the strong effect of
dynasties disappear, we leave for further research other endogeneity issues.

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poverty incidence as an alternative specification, we find that municipalities

in Mindanao with mayors from a dynasty are poorer.
While the literature shows that dynasties with good institutions have a sal-
utary effect on economic performance (Besley and Reynal-Querol 2017) and
that dynasties with bad institutions are detrimental (Mendoza et al. 2016),
our results show that for smaller administrative units, the specific historical,
institutional, and political context also matters in determining the influence of
political dynasties. In our paper’s case, poor municipalities in Mindanao that
have experienced centuries of conflict, displacement and political exclusion
have enabled tightly connected political families to produce local chief execu-
tives that were more extractive.
In the Philippines, we find that generally, the channels on clientelistic redis-
tribution through social expenditures and the channel of corruption through
economic expenditures dominate the local dynastic cycles. The economic
development motive of politicians is probably the reason for generally incon-
clusive variations on nighttime lights between dynastic and non-dynastic
LGUs. Across all specifications, we find that social expenditures have a nega-
tive relationship with economic development and is associated with higher
poverty incidence. This is not the optimal strategy for already poor localities
that should invest in many important sectors like health, education, and eco-
nomic services. Moreover, when the governor, congressman, and mayor belong
to the same family, there is a weak check and balance which results in corrup-
tion and inefficiencies in investments as seen in the negative relationship of
economic expenditure share and economic development.
In summary, our primary contribution to the literature is to extend the anal-
ysis of political dynasties at the municipal-level and city-level using nighttime
lights as a novel economic measure. Unlike previous literature, we find impor-
tant nuances on how political dynasties mediate the effect of spending and
economic policies for local development. However, there are some open ques-
tions that can be investigated by future research. For instance, a more detailed
analysis on the different motivations and various channels of the local dynas-
tic cycle can be explored by political scientists. To be more specific, the conflict
and complementarity of the economic channel and clientelist channel is an
important dynamic to understand.
Acknowledgments
We thank Ronald Mendoza and the Asian Institute of Management (AIM)

Policy Center for providing us the data on political dynasties. We also thank
the three anonymous referees as well as the Philippine Political Science

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Journal’s editor-in-chief for improving the paper through their incisive com-
ments. We also thank participants at the University of the Philippines Center
for Integrative and Development Studies’ (UP CIDS) Data Science for Public
Policy and at the Philippine Economic Society Annual Meeting for valuable
suggestions. All errors remain the authors’ own.
Notes on the Contributors
Ludigil Garces is a PhD Student at the University of the Philippines School of

Economics.
Karl Jandoc, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines
School of Economics and a Fellow of the Data Science for Public Policy Program
of the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies.
Mary Grace Lu is a Researcher at the University of the Philippines School of
Economics.
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PHILIPPINE POLITICAL

SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

Political Dynasties and Economic Development:

Political dynasties, by limiting political competition, are thought to exacerbate cor-

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/2165025X-bja10010

political dynasty – nighttime light – economic development – small area estimates –

Political dynasties are families holding several elective positions in a govern-

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

figure 1 Total Number of Politicians from a Dynasty by the Major Island

2 Unobserved heterogeneity, in this context, refers to quantitative data or information spe-

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

2 Background and Literature

2.1 Philippine Political Dynasties and Local Politics

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

However, the literature documenting the economic effects of dynasties

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

figure 2 Ampatuan Political Dynasty Mapping for 2013

2.2 Local Dynastic Cycle

5 There is an interconnection between familial ties and incidence of conflicts in Mindanao.

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

figure 3 Analytical Framework on the Local Dynastic Cycle

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

Corruption plays an important role in the local dynastic cycle. However,

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

performance is an attractive way to achieve reelection in the face of political

2.3 Nighttime Lights and Economic Activity

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

whether the corruption channel, clientelistic channel, and economic develop-

3.1 DMSP-OLS Nighttime Lights Time Series

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

figure 4 An example of a nighttime image of Philippine

An alternative measure for economic development is Small Area Estimates

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

3.2 Political Dynasty Measures

I ik = 1 if a politician in the kth elective post is in a dynasty, 0 otherwise

The variable I ik , for k = {m, v, c} is an indicator variable that takes on value 1

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

local development even without the strong connection to the representative

3.3 Other Controls

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

locality. Normally, this corresponds to the economic development channel.

3.4 Summary Statistics

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

table 1 Summary statistics: all cities and municipalities

NCR Luzon Visayas Mindanao

Nighttime light luminosity 60.352 4.865 2.26 0.924

Note: Standard deviations are in parentheses.

table 2 Summary statistics: cities only

NCR Luzon Visayas Mindanao

Nighttime light luminosity 60.425 14.115 10.263 4.087

Note: Standard deviations are in parentheses.

In summary, we use information from various sources covering the period

PHILIPPINE POLITICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL 41 (2020) 215–261

table 3 Summary statistics: municipalities only

Luzon Visayas Mindanao

Nighttime light luminosity 4.208 1.492 0.653

Lightit = β0 + β1 Dynastyit + β2 LNonNCRit + β3 Visayasit + β4 Mindanaoit + β5

Income Squared –0.00000* –0.00000* –0.00000* –0.00000* –0.00000***

Economic –0.694 –0.892 –0.797 –0.821 –0.746*

Income 0.006* 0.006* 0.016* 0.017*

Dynasty –4.781* –2.479 –2.917* –0.710 –1.349 –1.093 –0.941 0.843