IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/15891.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corruption under Austerity

Author

Listed:
  • Daniele, Gianmarco
  • Giommoni, Tommaso

Abstract

We study how policies limiting the spending capacity of local governments may reduce corruption. We exploit the extension of one such policy, the Domestic Stability Pact (DSP), to small Italian municipalities. The DSP led to a decrease in both recorded corruption rates and corruption charges per euro spent. This effect emerges only in areas in which the DSP put a binding cap on municipal capital expenditures. The reduction in corruption is linked to accountability incentives as it emerges mostly in pre-electoral years and for re-eligible mayors. We then estimate the impact of the extension of the DSP on local public good provision in the following years, finding a null effect in the short run. Overall, our findings suggest that budget constraints might induce local governments to curb expenditures in a way that dampens their exposure to corruption without depressing local welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniele, Gianmarco & Giommoni, Tommaso, 2021. "Corruption under Austerity," CEPR Discussion Papers 15891, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15891
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP15891
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thiemo Fetzer, 2019. "Did Austerity Cause Brexit?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3849-3886, November.
    2. Fernanda Brollo & Tommaso Nannicini & Roberto Perotti & Guido Tabellini, 2013. "The Political Resource Curse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1759-1796, August.
    3. Benjamin A. Olken & Rohini Pande, 2012. "Corruption in Developing Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 479-509, July.
    4. Heinemann, Friedrich & Moessinger, Marc-Daniel & Yeter, Mustafa, 2018. "Do fiscal rules constrain fiscal policy? A meta-regression-analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 69-92.
    5. Gallego, Jorge & Prem, Mounu & Vargas, Juan F., 2020. "Corruption in the Times of Pandemia," SocArXiv js8by, Center for Open Science.
    6. Luigi Marattin & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Porcelli, 2022. "Revenue vs expenditure based fiscal consolidation: the pass-through from federal cuts to local taxes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(4), pages 834-872, August.
    7. Bonfatti, Andrea & Forni, Lorenzo, 2019. "Fiscal rules to tame the political budget cycle: Evidence from Italian municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    8. Horacio Larreguy & John Marshall & James M SnyderJr., 0. "Publicising Malfeasance: When the Local Media Structure Facilitates Electoral Accountability in Mexico," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(631), pages 2291-2327.
    9. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression‐Discontinuity Designs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2295-2326, November.
    10. Brollo, Fernanda & Troiano, Ugo, 2016. "What happens when a woman wins an election? Evidence from close races in Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 28-45.
    11. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1995. "Fiscal Expansions and Fiscal Adjustments in OECD Countries," NBER Working Papers 5214, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Federico Boffa & Amedeo Piolatto & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2011. "Political centralization and government accountability," Economics Working Papers 1335, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2015.
    13. Enikolopov, Ruben & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2007. "Decentralization and political institutions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2261-2290, December.
    14. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2009. "Social Connections and Incentives in the Workplace: Evidence From Personnel Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1047-1094, July.
    15. Barone, Guglielmo & Narciso, Gaia, 2015. "Organized crime and business subsidies: Where does the money go?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 98-110.
    16. Zareh Asatryan & Lars Feld & Benny Geys, 2015. "Partial fiscal decentralization and sub-national government fiscal discipline: empirical evidence from OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 307-320, June.
    17. Francesco Decarolis, 2018. "Comparing Public Procurement Auctions," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(2), pages 391-419, May.
    18. Taylor C. Boas & F. Daniel Hidalgo & Marcus André Melo, 2019. "Norms versus Action: Why Voters Fail to Sanction Malfeasance in Brazil," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(2), pages 385-400, April.
    19. Ilaria De Angelis & Guido de Blasio & Lucia Rizzica, 2018. "On the unintended effects of public transfers: evidence from EU funding to Southern Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1180, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    20. Fisman, Raymond & Gatti, Roberta, 2002. "Decentralization and corruption: evidence across countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 325-345, March.
    21. Decio Coviello & Stefano Gagliarducci, 2017. "Tenure in Office and Public Procurement," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 59-105, August.
    22. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2010. "Social Incentives in the Workplace," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 77(2), pages 417-458.
    23. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Luis R. Cámara Fuertes & Rainer Schwabe, 2016. "Monitoring Corruptible Politicians," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(8), pages 2371-2405, August.
    24. Tommaso Giommoni, 2017. "Exposition to Corruption and Political Participation: Evidence from Italian Municipalities," CESifo Working Paper Series 6645, CESifo.
    25. Marco Di Cataldo & Nicola Mastrorocco, 2022. "Organized Crime, Captured Politicians, and the Allocation of Public Resources [“Mafiaand Public Spending: Evidence on the Fiscal Multiplier from a Quasi-Experiment]," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(3), pages 774-839.
    26. Alpino, Matteo & Asatryan, Zareh & Blesse, Sebastian & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2022. "Austerity and distributional policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 112-127.
    27. Veronica Grembi & Tommaso Nannicini & Ugo Troiano, 2016. "Do Fiscal Rules Matter?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 1-30, July.
    28. Alesina, Alberto & Angeletos, George-Marios, 2005. "Corruption, inequality, and fairness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1227-1244, October.
    29. Tommaso Nannicini & Andrea Stella & Guido Tabellini & Ugo Troiano, 2013. "Social Capital and Political Accountability," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 222-250, May.
    30. Eric Avis & Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2018. "Do Government Audits Reduce Corruption? Estimating the Impacts of Exposing Corrupt Politicians," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 1912-1964.
    31. Pablo Casas-Arce & Albert Saiz, 2015. "Women and Power: Unpopular, Unwilling, or Held Back?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(3), pages 641-669.
    32. Stefano Gagliarducci & Tommaso Nannicini, 2013. "Do Better Paid Politicians Perform Better? Disentangling Incentives From Selection," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 369-398, April.
    33. Titl, Vitezslav & Geys, Benny, 2019. "Political donations and the allocation of public procurement contracts," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 443-458.
    34. Xavier Debrun & Laurent Moulin & Alessandro Turrini & Joaquim Ayuso-i-Casals & Manmohan S. Kumar, 2008. "Tied to the mast? National fiscal rules in the European Union [‘Constitutions, politics, and economics’]," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 23(54), pages 298-362.
    35. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Fiscal Discipline and the Budget Process," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 401-407, May.
    36. Hessami, Zohal, 2014. "Political corruption, public procurement, and budget composition: Theory and evidence from OECD countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 372-389.
    37. Federico Boffa & Amedeo Piolatto & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2016. "Political Centralization and Government Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 131(1), pages 381-422.
    38. Nicola Limodio, 2021. "Bureaucrat Allocation in the Public Sector: Evidence from the World Bank," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(639), pages 3012-3040.
    39. Bracco, Emanuele & Porcelli, Francesco & Redoano, Michela, 2019. "Political competition, tax salience and accountability. Theory and evidence from Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 138-163.
    40. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2011. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1274-1311, June.
    41. Becker, Sascha O. & Egger, Peter H. & von Ehrlich, Maximilian, 2018. "Effects of EU Regional Policy: 1989-2013," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 143-152.
    42. Zamboni, Yves & Litschig, Stephan, 2018. "Audit risk and rent extraction: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 133-149.
    43. Benjamin A. Olken, 2007. "Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115, pages 200-249.
    44. Di Tella, Rafael & Schargrodsky, Ernesto, 2003. "The Role of Wages and Auditing during a Crackdown on Corruption in the City of Buenos Aires," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(1), pages 269-292, April.
    45. Luca Repetto, 2018. "Political Budget Cycles with Informed Voters: Evidence from Italy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(616), pages 3320-3353, December.
    46. Decio Coviello & Immacolata Marino & Tommaso Nannicini & Nicola Persico, 2017. "Direct Propagation of a Fiscal Shock: Evidence from Italy's Stability Pact," CSEF Working Papers 484, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    47. Tommaso Giommoni, 2019. "Does progressivity always lead to progress? The impact of local redistribution on tax manipulation," CESifo Working Paper Series 7588, CESifo.
    48. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    49. Caterina Pavese & Enrico Rubolino, 2021. "Do Fiscal Restraints Harm Test Scores? Evidence from Italy," Working Papers 2021:02, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    50. Timothy G. Conley & Francesco Decarolis, 2016. "Detecting Bidders Groups in Collusive Auctions," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 1-38, May.
    51. Nicola Branzoli & Francesco Decarolis, 2015. "Entry and Subcontracting in Public Procurement Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(12), pages 2945-2962, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Cerrato & Francesco Filippucci, 2022. "The Impact of Austerity Policies on Local Income: Evidence from Italian Municipalities," Working Papers halshs-03665241, HAL.
    2. Niklas Potrafke, 2023. "The Economic Consequences of Fiscal Rules," CESifo Working Paper Series 10765, CESifo.
    3. Andrea Cerrato & Francesco Filippucci, 2022. "The Impact of Austerity Policies on Local Income: Evidence from Italian Municipalities," PSE Working Papers halshs-03665241, HAL.
    4. Bruce, Raphael & Cavgias, Alexsandros & Meloni, Luis & Remígio, Mário, 2022. "Under pressure: Women’s leadership during the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. Mancini, Anna Laura & Tommasino, Pietro, 2023. "Fiscal rules and the reliability of public investment plans: Evidence from local governments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    6. Elliott Ash & Sergio Galletta & Tommaso Giommoni, 2021. "A Machine Learning Approach to Analyze and Support Anti-Corruption Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 9015, CESifo.
    7. Sebastian Blesse & Florian Dorn & Max Lay, 2023. "Do Fiscal Rules Undermine Public Investments? A Review of Empirical Evidence," ifo Working Paper Series 393, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    8. Sebastian Blesse & Florian Dorn & Max Lay, 2023. "Schwächen Fiskalregeln öffentliche Investitionen?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 76(06), pages 22-28, June.
    9. D’Inverno, Giovanna & Vidoli, Francesco & De Witte, Kristof, 2023. "Sustainable budgeting and financial balance: Which lever will you pull?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(2), pages 857-871.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Britto, Diogo G.C. & Fiorin, Stefano, 2020. "Corruption and legislature size: Evidence from Brazil," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    2. Colonnelli, Emanuele & Lagaras, Spyridon & Ponticelli, Jacopo & Prem, Mounu & Tsoutsoura, Margarita, 2022. "Revealing corruption: Firm and worker level evidence from Brazil," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1097-1119.
    3. Maximiliano Lauletta & Martín A. Rossi & Christian A. Ruzzier, 2022. "Audits and Government Hiring Practices," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 214-227, January.
    4. Picchio, Matteo & Santolini, Raffaella, 2020. "Fiscal rules and budget forecast errors of Italian municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    5. Alpino, Matteo & Asatryan, Zareh & Blesse, Sebastian & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2022. "Austerity and distributional policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 112-127.
    6. Gans-Morse, Jordan & Borges, Mariana & Makarin, Alexey & Mannah-Blankson, Theresa & Nickow, Andre & Zhang, Dong, 2018. "Reducing bureaucratic corruption: Interdisciplinary perspectives on what works," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 171-188.
    7. Angelo D'Andrea, 2019. "Mayor’s wage and Public procurement," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 19125, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    8. Elliott Ash & Sergio Galletta & Tommaso Giommoni, 2021. "A Machine Learning Approach to Analyze and Support Anti-Corruption Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 9015, CESifo.
    9. Kendall D. Funk & Erica Owen, 2020. "Consequences of an Anti‐Corruption Experiment for Local Government Performance in Brazil," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 444-468, March.
    10. Afridi, Farzana & Dhillon, Amrita & Chaudhuri, Arka Roy & Kaur, Dashleen, 2020. "Efficacy of Top down audits and Community Monitoring," OSF Preprints akpdy, Center for Open Science.
    11. Galletta, Sergio, 2017. "Law enforcement, municipal budgets and spillover effects: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Italy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 90-105.
    12. Cavalcanti, Francisco & Daniele, Gianmarco & Galletta, Sergio, 2018. "Popularity shocks and political selection," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 201-216.
    13. Eric Avis & Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2018. "Do Government Audits Reduce Corruption? Estimating the Impacts of Exposing Corrupt Politicians," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 1912-1964.
    14. Hsien-Yi Chen & Sheng-Syan Chen, 2023. "Can credit default swaps exert an enduring monitoring influence on political integrity?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 445-469, February.
    15. Gallego, Jorge & Rivero, Gonzalo & Martínez, Juan, 2021. "Preventing rather than punishing: An early warning model of malfeasance in public procurement," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 360-377.
    16. Francesco Decarolis & Cristina Giorgiantonio, 2020. "Corruption red flags in public procurement: new evidence from Italian calls for tenders," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 544, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    17. Mancini, Anna Laura & Tommasino, Pietro, 2023. "Fiscal rules and the reliability of public investment plans: Evidence from local governments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    18. Tsur, Yacov, 2022. "Political tenure, term limits and corruption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    19. Luigi Marattin & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Porcelli, 2022. "Revenue vs expenditure based fiscal consolidation: the pass-through from federal cuts to local taxes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(4), pages 834-872, August.
    20. Lucia Rizzica & Marco Tonello, 2015. "Exposure to media and corruption perceptions," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1043, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption; Austerity; Fiscal rules; European funds; Local public finance; Public procurement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • K34 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Tax Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15891. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.