Elections and Embezzlement : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso
Can democratic elections reduce rent extraction by public decision makers? Existing research suggests that reelection incentives can reduce the embezzlement of public funds. This paper examines three additional mechanisms through which democratic e...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/188921495025751605/Elections-and-embezzlement-experimental-evidence-from-Burkina-Faso http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26759 |
| Summary: | Can democratic elections reduce rent
extraction by public decision makers? Existing research
suggests that reelection incentives can reduce the
embezzlement of public funds. This paper examines three
additional mechanisms through which democratic elections
could have an impact on embezzlement, even in the absence of
reelection incentives: (1) electoral selection effects, (2)
social norms and norm enforcement, and (3) citizens'
trust in decision makers. Evidence from an experiment with
472 groups of citizens in rural Burkina Faso suggests that
electoral selection favors benevolent candidates.
Furthermore, elections increase citizens' willingness
to punish corrupt decision makers, even if their ability to
do so remains unchanged. However, these beneficial effects
of elections are offset by an unexpected adverse effect:
elections cause citizens to trust decision makers more than
they should be trusted. These findings have important
implications for the role of information in electoral democracy. |
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