The Political Resource Curse

Guido Tabellini, Roberto Perotti, Tommaso Nannicini and Fernanda Brollo ()

No 7672, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The paper studies the effect of additional government revenues on political corruption and on the quality of politicians, both with theory and data. The theory is based on a version of the career concerns model of political agency with endogenous entry of political candidates. The evidence refers to municipalities in Brazil, where federal transfers to municipal governments change exogenously according to given population thresholds. We exploit a regression discontinuity design to test the implications of the theory and identify the causal effect of larger federal transfers on political corruption and the observed features of political candidates at the municipal level. In accordance with the predictions of the theory, we find that larger transfers increase political corruption and reduce the quality of candidates for mayor.

Keywords: Corruption; Government spending; Political selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 H40 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Political Resource Curse (2013)
Working Paper: The Political Resource Curse (2010)
Working Paper: The Political Resource Curse (2010)
Working Paper: The Political Resource Curse (2009)
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