Governments and NGOs have invested heavily in fighting corruption by designing anti-poverty programs that maximize transparency and accountability. We analyze whether corruption is still widespread in the context of one such program, a massive make-work scheme in India where every job spell is posted publicly online. Linking millions of administrative job records to local election outcomes, we measure how many jobs local politicians self-deal. In the year after the election, winners of close elections receive 3 times as many workdays as losers and typical villagers. We find that corruption persists because of a gap between de jure and de facto transparency. Only when citizens have tools to access information in a timely manner does corruption eventually vanish.
Jeong, Dahyeon, Ajay Shenoy, and Laura V. Zimmermann. “De Jure versus De Facto Transparency: Corruption in Local Public Office in India.” Journal of Public Economics, vol. 221, 2023, article 104855. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104855
