An important new working paper by Chang-Tai Hsieh, Edward Miguel, Daniel Ortega, and Francisco Rodríguez examines whether Hugo Chavez opposition voters in Venezuela paid a price for their opposition. Between late 2002 and August 2004, more than 4.7 million Venezuelans signed petitions in favor of a recall election for Chavez despite widespread threats that signers would be punished. After Chavez’s victory in the August 2004 recall election, a list of supporters of the final petition was distributed throughout the public sector in a simple software package. Using data from household surveys, the authors determine that opposition voters experienced a 5 percent drop in earnings and a 1.5 percent drop in employment rates after their names were released. The authors also conclude that the retaliatory measures may have cost Venezuela up to 3 percent of G.D.P. due to misallocation of workers across jobs. (HT: Marginal Revolution) [%comments]
The Cost of Opposing Hugo Chavez
TAGS: voting
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In other words, rich people getting taxes and losing power will make them look poorer after voting against Chavez. But you can’t tell if that’s simply a trend of the political decision made by the country.
Maybe they should look and do the same thing in 1933. People who voted for Hoover probably saw their income decline after FDR slapped the top tax rate to 91%.
See the point? Chicken and Egg.
I was one of the people to sign that list against Chavez. The cost of being against Chavez can not be understood in those terms. Back then, when the employees of the Venezuelan petroleum company backed a one month national strike against Chavez (one month!!!) Chavez explained in TV that all this people will be fired and they were fired.
Right now the cost of being against Chavez can not even be measured. By any measure it seems like everybody is with Chavez. The reason is that the cost of being against him is so high that is almost impossible, he controls everything. Can somebody tell me how many Cubans in Cuba are against Fidel?????
At this point people, especially young people, does not see any other options. It has been like this for too many years.
Regardless, thanks for reporting this. Nobody reported correctly all the efforts that were done to stop the madness that has become Venezuela.
Did anyone do a similar study of the net losses to FAA air traffic controllers who were fired and replaced by President Reagen? Their strike was motivated by economics and working conditions, but the similarity might hold for the results – if not worse!
I had thought that Chavez claims to lead the Bolivarian Revolution, socialism for the 21st century. He openly endorses redistributive policies. Presumably, the people who oppose Chavez are those who are having their wealth redistributed away – thus the correlation we see here. This is not political intimidation, it is Chavez following through on his commitments to redistribute wealth away from the rich. Though it is not surprising to see anti-Chavez propaganda in the media, the problem the US has with Chavez has nothing to do with political corruption and everything to do with Venezuela’s economic policies.