Electoral rules and Corruption: The role of Political Competition

Maria Rosaria Alfano (), Anna Laura Baraldi () and Claudia Cantabene

Politica economica, 2013, issue 1, 119-143

Abstract: The economic and political literature widely studied the effects of electoral systemon corruption. But very little attention has been dedicated to the role of political competitionin explaining this relationship. We hypothesize that the proportionality degree of theelectoral system impacts corruption directly and in a conditional way: through the degree ofelectoral competition among political parties. The estimation results, on a sample of the 20Italian regions over 26 years, show that both the direct and the indirect effect matter in explainingcorruption. As the electoral system becomes more proportional, corruption directlydecrease. This beneficial effect can be reinforced or depressed depending on how politicalcompetition reacts to changes in the proportionality degree of the electoral system.

Keywords: political competition; electoral systems; corruption. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mul:je8794:doi:10.1429/75054:y:2013:i:1:p:119-143

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