Romain Ferrali
IBD Salle 21
AMU - AMSE
5-9 boulevard Maurice Bourdet
13001 Marseille
Michel Lubrano : michel.lubrano[at]univ-amu.fr
Pierre Michel : pierre.michel[at]univ-amu.fr
Under which conditions do anti-corruption policies effectively reduce bureaucratic corruption? Previous studies find that anti-corruption audits are effective in disciplining politicians, but their impact on bureaucrats is unclear. We leverage 10 years of randomized audits and the careers of 275 thousand Brazilian municipal officials. We find that audits lead to increased risks of dismissals and slower career progression. We further show that dismissals tend to target more non-tenured, less educated bureaucrats, suggesting that the program does not necessarily punish the most corrupt bureaucrats, but instead the ones that are easiest to punish.