The Political Resource Curse
- (pp. 1759-96)
Abstract
This 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 political agency model with career concerns and endogenous entry of candidates. The data refer to Brazil, where federal transfers to municipal governments change exogenously at given population thresholds, allowing us to implement a regression discontinuity design. The empirical evidence shows that larger transfers increase observed corruption and reduce the average education of candidates for mayor. These and other more specific empirical results are in line with the predictions of the theory.Citation
Brollo, Fernanda, Tommaso Nannicini, Roberto Perotti, and Guido Tabellini. 2013. "The Political Resource Curse." American Economic Review, 103 (5): 1759-96. DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.5.1759Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D73 Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
- H77 Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism; Secession
- O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
- O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure