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...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Lierl, Malte
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2017
Subjects:	CORRUPTION ELECTIONS POLITICS CIVIL SOCIETY CITIZENS DEMOCRACY
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/188921495025751605/Elections-and-embezzlement-experimental-evidence-from-Burkina-Faso http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26759

id	okr-10986-26759
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-267592021-06-08T14:42:46Z Elections and Embezzlement : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso Lierl, Malte CORRUPTION ELECTIONS POLITICS CIVIL SOCIETY CITIZENS DEMOCRACY 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. 2017-05-24T16:56:16Z 2017-05-24T16:56:16Z 2017-05 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/188921495025751605/Elections-and-embezzlement-experimental-evidence-from-Burkina-Faso http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26759 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8067 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Africa Burkina Faso
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	CORRUPTION ELECTIONS POLITICS CIVIL SOCIETY CITIZENS DEMOCRACY
spellingShingle	CORRUPTION ELECTIONS POLITICS CIVIL SOCIETY CITIZENS DEMOCRACY Lierl, Malte Elections and Embezzlement : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso
geographic_facet	Africa Burkina Faso
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8067
description	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.
format	Working Paper
author	Lierl, Malte
author_facet	Lierl, Malte
author_sort	Lierl, Malte
title	Elections and Embezzlement : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso
title_short	Elections and Embezzlement : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso
title_full	Elections and Embezzlement : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso
title_fullStr	Elections and Embezzlement : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso
title_full_unstemmed	Elections and Embezzlement : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso
title_sort	elections and embezzlement : experimental evidence from burkina faso
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2017
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/188921495025751605/Elections-and-embezzlement-experimental-evidence-from-Burkina-Faso http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26759
_version_	1764462780653502464

Elections and Embezzlement : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso

Similar Items