Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil's Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes

Abstract: This paper uses publicly released audit reports to study the effects of disclosing information about corruption practices on electoral accountability. In 2003, as part of an anti-corruption program, Brazil's federal government began to select municipalities at random to audit their expenditures of federally transferred funds. The findings of these audits were then made publicly available and disseminated to media sources. Using a data set on corruption constructed from the audit reports, the authors compare the electoral outcomes of municipalities audited versus after the 2004 elections, with the same levels of reported corruption.