Do the illegal and legal rents of politicians affect municipal election outcomes? Empirical evidence |
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Authors: | Bernardino Benito María-Dolores Guillamón Ana-María Ríos Francisco Bastida |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Accounting and Finance, Faculty of Economics and Business, Regional Campus of International Excellence “Campus Mare Nostrum”, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain;2. Department of Economy and Finance of the Public Sector, Faculty of Economics and Business, Regional Campus of International Excellence “Campus Mare Nostrum”, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain |
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Abstract: | This paper aims to analyse whether illegal (corruption) and legal rent extraction (high politicians’ wages) affect electoral outcomes at municipal level. We use an initial sample of 145 Spanish municipalities over 50,000 for two electoral periods: 2004–2007 (before the crisis) and 2008–2011 (during the crisis). Our findings show that neither illegal nor legal rent extraction impact on re-election in non-crisis times. However, we observe that citizens penalize legal rent extraction in the ballots during the crisis. Regarding the economic performance of the local governments, we find that its effect on re-election is important in non-crisis period. Nevertheless, in time of crisis, given that the economic situation is bad in general in the country, voters pay less attention to economic factors and focus on politicians’ behaviour. |
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Keywords: | Legal rent extraction illegal rent extraction electoral outcomes corruption re-election municipalities |
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