Paula Rettl, Assistant Professor, Business, Government, and International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School

Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025

Time: 12:00 p.m. 

Location: Heritage Room (201), Bates Hall 

Paper title: Turning Away from the State: Trade Shocks and Informal Insurance in Brazil

Abstract: How does economic globalization affect vote choices? Conventional wisdom holds that voters who lose from economic integration support parties that propose expanding the welfare state. However, in the Global South, where the state is frequently weak or under-resourced, people often turn to non-state organizations (such as churches) for protection against economic decline. I argue that, in these contexts, negative globalization shocks increase local communities' dependence on non-state organizations, thereby making the leaders within such organizations more effective political brokers. To test this argument, I propose a shift-share instrument that measures the exposure of Brazilian local labor markets to exogenous changes in exports. By matching this instrument with electoral and survey data, I provide evidence that declining exports increased the power of evangelical leaders to persuade their congregations to vote against parties that favor welfare-state expansion. My findings help explain and describe the contingencies underlying the political consequences of globalization.

About the speaker: Paula Rettl is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. Her primary areas of expertise are comparative politics, political economy and political behavior, with a focus on Latin America and Europe. Professor Rettl’s research centers on how broad societal changes shape mass attitudes and behavior. For example, in some of her work, she examines how voters’ responses to globalization varies depending on whether they rely on the state or religious organizations for support during difficult economic times. In other work, she investigates how natural disasters shape voting behavior and the role played by economic interest in this context.