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Are You Being Served?: Political Accountability and Quality of Government

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Author Info
Alicia Adsera
Carles Boix
Mark Payne

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Abstract

This paper explores, both formally and empirically, the political accountability mechanisms that lie behind the varying levels of public corruption and of effective governance taking place across nations. The first section develops a principal-agent model in which good governance is a function of the extent to which citizens can hold political officials accountable for their actions. Although policy-makers may have strong incentives to appropriate parts of the citizens` income, well-designed institutions (those increasing both informational flows and elite competitiveness) boost political accountability and reduce the space left for the appropriation of rents. The following sections of the paper test the model. The presence of democratic mechanisms of control and an increasingly informed electorate, measured through the frequency of newspaper readership, explain considerably well the distribution of corrupt practices and governmental ineffectiveness in three types of data sets: a large cross-section of countries in the late 1990s for which an extensive battery of governance indicators has been recently developed by Kaufmann et al. (1999a); a panel data set for the period 1980-95 and about 100 nations on corruption and bureaucratic quality based on experts` rankings; and corruption data for the cross-section of US states in the period 1977-95.

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Paper provided by Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department in its series RES Working Papers with number 4241.

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Date of creation: Nov 2000
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Handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:4241

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Brunetti, Aymo & Weder, Beatrice, 2003. "A free press is bad news for corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1801-1824, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Haldun Evrenk, 2005. "Mackerels in the Moonlight: Corrupt Politicians and Anti- Corruption Reform in Two-Candidate Elections," Game Theory and Information 0507005, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  2. Djankov, Simeon & La Porta, Rafael & López-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2009. "Disclosure by Politicians," CEPR Discussion Papers 7168, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Bernardo Mueller & Lee Alston & Carlos Pereira & Marcus Melo, 2008. "The Choices Governors Make: The Roles of Checks and Balances and Political Competition," Anais do XXXVI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 36th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 200807181549410, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pósgraduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics]. [Downloadable!]
  4. Torrisi, Gianpiero, 2007. "Redistributive policies and recipients: an empirical analysis," MPRA Paper 12769, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  5. Mauricio Cardenas & Roberto Junguito & Mónica Pachón, 2006. "Political Institutions and Policy Outcomes in Colombia: The Effects of the 1991 Constitution," RES Working Papers 3198, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2009. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 14937, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Andreas Kyriacou & Oriol Roca sagalés, 2009. "Fiscal descentralization and the quality of government: evidence from panel data," Hacienda Pública Española, IEF, vol. 189(2), pages 131-155, June. [Downloadable!]
  8. Zane Spindler & Xavier Vanssay & Vincent Hildebrand, 2008. "Using Economic Freedom Indexes as Policy Indicators: An Intercontinental Example," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 195-214, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Li’an Zhou & Jing Tao, 2009. "Government size, market-orientation and regional corruption: Evidence from the provincial level panel data," Frontiers of Economics in China, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 425-448, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Lorenz Blume & Stefan Voigt, 2007. "Supreme Audit Institutions: Supremely Superfluous? A Cross Country Assessment," ICER Working Papers 03-2007, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
  11. Ascensión Andina-Díaz, 2008. "Media bias and electoral competition," Working Papers 2008-6, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center. [Downloadable!]
  12. Svaleryd, Helena & Vlachos, Jonas, 2007. "Political Rents in a Non-Corrupt Democracy," Working Paper Series 698, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 26 Mar 2008. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  13. Finan, Frederico & Ferraz, Claudio, 2005. "Reelection Incentives and Political Corruption: Evidence from Brazilian Audit Reports," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19544, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association). [Downloadable!]
  14. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin, 2008. "Government Control of the Media," Working Papers w0126, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR). [Downloadable!]
  15. Haldun Evrenk, 2004. "Mackerels in the moonlight. A model of corrupt politicians," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 501, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
  16. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2007. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption in Local Governments: Evidence from Audit Reports," IZA Discussion Papers 2843, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  17. Ascensión Andina, 2004. "Asymmetric Information And Electoral Campaigns: The Monitoring Role Of Media," Working Papers. Serie AD 2004-32, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie). [Downloadable!]
  18. Antonio Saravia, 2008. "A note on the U-shaped relationship between political competition and economic freedom," Development Research Working Paper Series 07/2008, Institute for Advanced Development Studies. [Downloadable!]
  19. Enrico Perotti & Paolo Volpin, 2007. "Investor Protection and Entry," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-006/2, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
  20. Blumkin, Tomer & Gradstein, Mark, 2002. "Transparency Gloves for Grabbing Hands? Politics and (Mis)Governance," CEPR Discussion Papers 3668, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Evrenk, Haldun, 2002. "Political economy of anti-corruption reform in two-candidate elections," MPRA Paper 1958, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jul 2006. [Downloadable!]
  22. Ascensión Andina, 2003. "What Do Media Outlets Compete For?," Working Papers. Serie AD 2003-19, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie). [Downloadable!]
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