Do Government Audits Reduce Corruption: Estimating the Impacts of Exposing Corrupt Politicians

Published By: NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH on eSS | Published Date: July , 2016

This paper examines the extent to which government audits of public resources can reduce corruption by enhancing political and judiciary accountability. It does so in the context of Brazil’s anti-corruption program, which randomly audits municipalities for their use of federal funds. It finds that being audited in the past reduces future corruption by 8 percent, while also increasing the likelihood of experiencing a subsequent legal action by 20 percent. This paper interprets these reduced-form findings through a political agency model, which it structurally estimates. [Working Paper 22443]

Author(s): Eric Avis, Claudio Ferraz, Frederico Finan | Posted on: Jul 29, 2016 | Views()


Member comments

Submit

No Comments yet! Be first one to initiate it!

Creative Commons License