The Political Resource Curse

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Brollo, Fernanda; Nannicini, Tommaso; Perotti, Roberto; Tabellini, Guido
• 署名单位: Universitat d'Alacant; Bocconi University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.5.1759
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 1759-1796
• 关键词: identification; audits; OIL

摘要

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. (JEL D72, D73, H77, O17, O18)