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2018 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

9. Fighting Political Corruption: Evidence from Brazil

Authors : Claudio Ferraz, Frederico Finan

Published in: Institutions, Governance and the Control of Corruption

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Political corruption is widespread across many developing countries and it is considered a major impediment to economic development. But we have limited evidence on the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies. This chapter summarizes the extent to which government audits of public resources reduces corruption in the context of Brazils anti-corruption program that randomly audits municipalities for their use of federal funds.

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This rule has changed over time going from 3 to 12 lotteries.

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Ferraz and Finan (2008) find no evidence that auditors manipulate the audit reports according to municipal and mayor characteristics such as political competition or specific parties. In a recent study of Brazil’s federal government, Bersch et al. (2016) found the CGU to be one of the government’s most autonomous and least politicized agencies.

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Title: Fighting Political Corruption: Evidence from Brazil
Authors: Claudio Ferraz
Frederico Finan
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Institutions, Governance and the Control of Corruption
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65683-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-65684-7

Copyright Year: 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65684-7_9