Does Combating Corruption Reduce Clientelism?

Gustavo J Bobonis, Paul J Gertler, Marco Gonzalez-Navarro and Simeon Nichter

Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Abstract: Abstract Does combating corruption reduce clientelism? To investigate this question, we focus on a policy that has been widely used across the world: anti-corruption audits. We examine the impact of Brazil’s prominent audit programme on clientelism using a novel survey of rural citizens. Randomised audits reduce politicians’ provision of campaign handouts, decrease citizens’ demands for private goods, and reduce requests fulfilled by politicians. We investigate mechanisms by which audits may reduce clientelism, and find that audits significantly reduce citizens’ willingness to supply clientelistic votes.

Keywords: 38 Economics (for-2020); 3801 Applied Economics (for-2020); 3802 Econometrics (for-2020); 3803 Economic Theory (for-2020); 16 Peace; Justice and Strong Institutions (sdg); 14 Economics (for); Economics (science-metrix); 3801 Applied economics (for-2020); 3802 Econometrics (for-2020); 3803 Economic theory (for-2020) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-04-03
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