Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from US States / Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-Anh Do.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Campante, Filipe R.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Do, Quoc-Anh.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w19027.

NBER working paper series no. w19027

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2013.

Summary:

We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states, in line with the view that this isolation reduces accountability, and in contrast with the alternative hypothesis that it might forestall political capture. We then provide direct evidence that the spatial distribution of population relative to the capital affects different accountability mechanisms over state politics: newspaper coverage, voter knowledge and information, and turnout. We also find evidence against the capture hypothesis: isolated capitals are associated with more money in state-level campaigns. Finally, we show that isolation is linked with worse public good provision.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2013.