We present a simple theory of the quality (competence and honesty) of elected officials. Our theory offers four main …). Hence, voters may find themselves supply constrained of high-quality candidates. Second, bad politicians generate negative …

Opportunistic politicians maximize the probability of reelection and rents from office holding. Can it be optimal from … their point of view to delegate policy choices to independent bureaucracies? The answer is yes: politicians will delegate … some policy tasks, though in general not those that would be socially optimal to delegate. In particular, politicians tend …

that the policy maker is the commitment type (the policy maker's reputation) help promote good behavior by private agents …-ante perspective. If the initial reputation is not too high, the optimal rule is the strictest one that is incentive compatible for the … arise in a static environment. Moreover, opaque rules are preferable to transparent ones if reputation is high enough …

In this paper, we develop a dynamic model of politicians who can engage in corruption. The model offers important … insights into what determines corruption and how to design policy to combat it. We estimate the model using data from Brazil to … measure voters' willingness to pay for various commonly-proposed anti-corruption policies, such as increasing audit …

anti-corruption enforcement affect the expected quality of governance through candidate self-selection. We also show that …

, we rule out a range of alternative explanations for differential earnings of politicians and a relevant control group …

Adequate wages are an important tool to shield public officials from special interests and corruption. But what is the …-paid officials' lower likelihood of catering to criminal interests. In particular, we show that better-paid politicians are … significantly more likely to prevent corruption in public procurement, a key area of illicit interactions between the state and …