Reseach

Female Candidate Performance and Gender Quotas: The case of Ecuador
with Sarah Carrington and Gabriel Velástegui
Women, Politics & Policy 

Ecuador has one of the strongest electoral designs in terms of gender quotas in Latin America. However, there remains a significant gap between the number of women candidates and the number elected. To explain why a quota does not lead to an elected representation proportional to the quota we examine voter bias and elite bias in the legislative elections of 2013 and 2017. Results show gender bias towards female candidates, and not against, which is a surprising result in a country maintaining a culture of traditional gender roles on average. A breakdown of the voting patterns by gender, however, reveals that the overall voter preference for female candidates is driven entirely by female voter tendencies. Rather, the lack of representation of women as frontrunners in a political party might explain the gap between female candidates and elected members to the National Assembly. Elite bias against women, not voter bias, explains women’s electoral fortunes in Ecuador.

The effects of candidate appearance on electoral success: Evidence from Ecuador
with Royce Carroll 
Political Research Quarterly 

Research has shown that attractiveness can be a decisive factor under many conditions. In this paper, we analyze the potential for voting environments to encourage voting based on appearance. We examine Ecuador's 2014 and 2019 municipal elections, where voters faced a complex and highly candidate-centered electoral system, ballot, and candidate choices. The ballots in these elections provided photos of each candidate, which enhanced the potential for candidate appearance to act as a heuristic in a context of low-information decision-making. We find that attractiveness has a positive and substantively large effect on candidate evaluation and elections outcomes. This effect is strongest in poorer districts, which are associated with less sophisticated voters. Although we find no overall effect of candidate gender, we find that the effect of appearance is strongest for female candidates placed in the upper left section of the ballot. Using data from gender-separated polling stations, we find that the effect for female candidates is driven by female voters.

Gender Parity in Ecuador: The impact of the 2020 electoral reform on the representation of women in elected office
with Richard Ortiz
Revista de Ciencia Politica (Revised and Resubmitted)

This work provides a first assessment of Ecuador’s Electoral Law from a gender perspective. In the context of 2020 electoral reform and general elections held in 2021, we analyze the importance of the Index of Strength of the Gender Quota (IFCG for its initials in Spanish). Moreover, we further propose an adjustment to such index to better examine the progress of the quota/parity design in the Ecuadorian context. We also analyze the different components of the electoral system from a gender perspective in order to understand their potential to improve or hinder the descriptive representation of women. Results corroborate findings from previous studies on the benefits of a less proportional method for the allocation of seats and women heading list to improve the presence of women in parliamentary bodies.

Gender preferences in child labor in Ecuador  
with Karla Meneses and Estéfany Cruz Pazmiño
Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Child labor is addressed through the analysis of parental decision-making on behalf of their children. Using an econometric model, this study seeks to determine how gender preferences related to parents’ years of schooling might affect their decisions to send children to work. The results show that a father’s education has a positive and significant effect on reducing the probability of child labor for both male children and female children. A mother’s higher level of education has no significant effect on child labor regardless of the child’s gender. These results suggest that in Ecuador, women might have more limited bargaining power in household structures. On the other hand, they could also reflect a cultural preference of families that see child labor as acceptable.

Promoting Behavioral Change Using Text Messages: A Case Study of Blackberry Farmers in Ecuador
with Jeffrey Alwang and Víctor Barrera
Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics

This study measures the effect of text message receipt on behavioral change by Ecuadorean blackberry farmers. We examine whether text messages affect knowledge about specific technologies or serve as reminders to farmers to employ practices as part of their crop management strategy. Drawing from well-known theories of behavioral change, we identify pathways relevant to technology adoption. We then describe results from a randomized experiment and measure the impact of the intervention through these pathways. Results suggest that in the blackberry context, timely text messages remind farmers about recommended practices and increase adoption. Effects on knowledge enhancement are not significant.

Nacionalización del sistema de partidos en Ecuador: una mirada a las elecciones presidenciales 1952-2013
with Michel Vargas and Marcela Paredes
Revista Democracias

La problemática de la nacionalización de los sistemas de partidos está estrechamente vinculada con los problemas de la distribución territorial de poder y puede afectar directamente la orientación del votante, la gobernabilidad del sistema y las políticas públicas. A pesar de su importancia, este tema no ha sido estudiado a profundidad. En este artículo se analiza la evolución de la nacionalización del sistema de partidos en el Ecuador en el periodo comprendido entre 1952 y 2013, para lo cual se utilizan los resultados electorales a nivel provincial de las primeras vueltas de las elecciones presidenciales. Los resultados muestran un alto nivel de volatilidad en las dimensiones estáticas y dinámicas de la nacionalización de los partidos y desenmascaran un regionalismo persistente en los partidos políticos ecuatorianos.

Paper: Does IPM Have Staying Power? Revisiting a Potato-producing Area Years After Formal Training Ended
with Jeffrey Alwang, George Norton and Víctor Barrera
Journal of Agricultural Economics

Integrated pest management (IPM) potentially reduces pesticide use and costs of agricultural production. However, IPM is knowledge intensive and its spread may dissipate over time due to knowledge required for its effective implementation and to competing messages about pest control. We examine IPM spread and adoption several years after formal intensive IPM outreach efforts ceased in a potato‐producing region in Ecuador. We describe adoption patterns and sources of IPM knowledge in 2012 and compare them with patterns that existed when outreach ceased in 2003. Results show that IPM adoption continues in the area but with a lower proportion of farmers fully adopting all practices and a higher proportion adopting low to moderate levels as compared to 2003. Almost all potato farmers in the area use some IPM practices, reflecting a major increase in IPM use. Farmer‐to‐farmer spread has supplanted formal training and outreach mechanisms. IPM adoption significantly lowers pesticide use and saves production costs for adopters.