Do large-scale and unexpected events, such as natural disasters, affect elections? This article studies the political dimension of the 19-S earthquake that hit Mexico City in 2017, a few months before the 2018 elections. Using fine-grained geospatial data, the results show that candidates from the city-level incumbent Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) had a small increase in vote share in 2018 compared to the previous election in precincts more exposed to damaged caused by the earthquake (in terms of both distance-based and per capita measures), accounting for the seismic profile and socioeconomic characteristics of the neighborhood. The article shows that the implementation of disaster-recovery policy explains part of this relationship. Moreover, voters were as electorally responsive to a future risk reduction strategy as to a reconstruction credit.

Many areas in applied econometric research within political economy fail to come up with conclusive findings. This is the case, for example, with studies on the determinants of public social spending in Latin America, a key area of research given the impact of social programs on poverty, inequality, and welfare more generally. In this area, as in others, it is hard to identify clear answers regarding the impact of economic processes and political institutions. Two reasons explain this lack of knowledge accumulation. First, each study uses different data sources and analytical models. Second, some of the empirical strategies required to solve various econometric problems may affect the results. This article questions the role of econometric research as the only method to explore political economy questions and highlights the importance of promoting conversations between complementary methods of both quantitative and qualitative traditions.

The mechanisms by which the world economic crisis has been transmitted from developed to developing economies are conditioned by domestic factors that may attenuate or accentuate external economic shocks and their adverse social effects. Cuba is a special case: it is an open economy and hence vulnerable to trade-growth transmission mechanisms, but at the same time, it is a socialist economy with universal social services. This article reviews the literature, summarises Cuba's domestic socio-economic strengths and weaknesses prior to the crisis, evaluates the effects of the crisis on the macro-economic and social services indicators, assesses the government response and suggests alternative socio-economic policies.