Political aftershocks of an earthquake : the effect of the Chilean 2010 earthquake on participation in the 2011 student’s protests

Abstract

Reasons to participate in protests are an ongoing debate in political economy. In this paper we study whether Chilean students affected by the earthquake of 2010 participated more in the subsequent protests of the Student’s Movement of 2011. Using data for more than 600,000 students we document that those students who had their school damaged by the earthquake participated up to 24 p.p. more than those who were not affected. This effect is larger for students in public schools, that participated between 22 and 42 p.p. more. We find evidence supporting that this effect could be explained by the delay in the government’s response to the catastrophe. Also, we show that affected schools presented more pro-social behavior between students, suggesting lower coordination costs in those schools.