The Electoral Effects of Corruption: Why Candidate Profiles Matter

In 2003, Brazil’s comptroller general introduced a program of randomized audits of the country’s municipalities. A numerical code for each of the 5,500+ municipalities included in the program was written on a lottery ball, and 40 subsequent lotteries have each selected a group of either 50 or 60 municipalities for immediate audit. All irregularities identified during these audits have been published online, and are typically widely disseminated to the electorates of the selected municipalities through local media coverage. My research exploits a large database that combines information about the findings of these randomized audits with electorate and candidate characteristics, to answer questions about how different kinds of political candidates fair in elections that follow news of corruption. I expect to find that young candidates and female candidates receive an ‘electoral boost’.