Recent studies have emphasized the importance of the quality of politicians for good government and consequently economic performance. But if the quality of leadership matters, then understanding what motivates individuals to become politicians and perform competently in office becomes a central...

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...