Crime and punishment the British way: accountability channels following the MPs’ expenses scandal

Valentino Larcinese and Indraneel Sircar

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Does democracy make politicians accountable? And which role does information play in the accountability process? There are several reasons making the 2009 {UK} expenses scandal an ideal setting to answer these questions. Our study of the scandal reaches two main conclusions: 1) the removal of corrupt politicians happens mostly at the pre-election stage; 2) information availability is a crucial ingredient in the accountability process. We also show that punishment was directed to individual {MPs} rather than their parties and that voters displayed a substantial partisan bias, not only at the voting stage but also by perceiving co-partisan {MPs} to be less involved in the scandal. Ceteris paribus, female {MPs} attracted more press coverage and, for the same amount of coverage, were more likely to stand down. Finally, we show that press coverage was ideologically balanced, i.e., newspapers with different ideological leaning devoted similar amount of news to each MP.

Keywords: mass media; accountability; corruption; voting; partisan bias; female politicians (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F3 G3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-law and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published in European Journal of Political Economy, 1, March, 2017, 47, pp. 75-99. ISSN: 0176-2680

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Related works:
Journal Article: Crime and punishment the British way: Accountability channels following the MPs’ expenses scandal (2017)
Working Paper: Crime and Punishment the British way: Accountability Channels Following the MPs’ Expenses Scandal (2014)
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