Political economy of anti-corruption reform in two-candidate elections

Haldun Evrenk ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We analyze the effectiveness of some commonly discussed anti--corruption reforms on political corruption, using a theoretical model of competition between two candidates in a probabilistic voting setup. Candidates, who may differ both in their ability to produce the public good, and popularity with voters, propose a tax rate and a public good level. The budget constraint implies that taxes collected must equal the sum of funds used in public good production plus funds stolen by the elected politician. We identify the conditions under which constitutional constraints on policies, higher penalties for corruption, and higher wages for elected politicians increase (or decrease) voters' welfare. We discuss how the asymmetric information and the rigidity of constitutions reduce the effectiveness of the reforms, and how distributional effects of reforms may reduce the voters' support for a welfare--improving reform. Finally, we argue that effective reforms may not be proposed by both corrupt and honest politicians.

Keywords: Political Agency; Constitutional Design; Political Economy of Reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-10, Revised 2006-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-law, nep-pol and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:1958

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