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Publicising Malfeasance: When the Local Media Structure Facilitates Electoral Accountability in Mexico

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  • Horacio Larreguy
  • John Marshall
  • James M SnyderJr.

Abstract

Malfeasance in local governments is common in developing democracies. Electoral accountability could mitigate such malfeasance, but may require media market structures that incentivise profit-maximising local media to report on incumbent malfeasance. We test this claim in Mexico, leveraging plausibly exogenous variation in the pre-election release of municipal audits revealing misallocated spending and access to broadcast media. We find that each additional local media station amplifies voter punishment (rewards) of high (zero) malfeasance by up to 1 percentage point. Local media’s accountability-enhancing effects are greater when there are fewer non-local competitors and where local outlets’ audiences principally reside within their municipality.

Suggested Citation

  • Horacio Larreguy & John Marshall & James M SnyderJr., 2020. "Publicising Malfeasance: When the Local Media Structure Facilitates Electoral Accountability in Mexico," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(631), pages 2291-2327.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:130:y:2020:i:631:p:2291-2327.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/ueaa046
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    Cited by:

    1. Aycinena, Diego & Elbittar, Alexander & Gomberg, Andrei & Rentschler, Lucas, 2023. "Does free information provision crowd out costly information acquisition? It's a matter of timing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 182-195.
    2. Di Tella, Rafael & Galiani, Sebastian & Schargrodsky, Ernesto, 2021. "Persuasive propaganda during the 2015 Argentine Ballotage," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 885-900.
    3. Gianmarco León-Ciliotta & Dijana Zejcirovic & Fernando Fernandez, 2022. "Policy-making, trust and the demand for public services: Evidence from a nationwide family planning program," Economics Working Papers 1843, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    4. Schechter, Laura & Vasudevan, Srinivasan, 2023. "Persuading voters to punish corrupt vote-buying candidates: Experimental evidence from a large-scale radio campaign in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    5. Bühler Mathias & Andrew Dickens, 2024. "From Couch to Poll: Media Content and The Value of Local Information," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 496, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.

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