Recruitment Job Talk with Marko Klasnja

DateNovember 21, 2014

Time12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location
4357 Bunche Hall

Contact

Presenter:Marko Klasnja, New York UniversityTitle: “Corruption and the Incumbency Disadvantage: Theory and Evidence”Abstract:Incumbents in many developing democracies face significant disadvantages when seeking reelection, in stark contrast to the well-known incumbency advantage that exists in the U.S. and other mature democracies. Here I propose and test a new explanation for this incumbency disadvantage: corruption. Formally, I show that incumbents become more disadvantaged as the cost of committing corruption decreases, as the quality of the pool of candidates for office deteriorates, and when gains to corruption increase with time spent in office. I test these hypotheses by developing innovative measures of local corruption in Romania. Identification comes from two discontinuities: (1) national rules tying mayoral salaries to thresholds in town populations that cause jumps in the opportunity cost of corruption and thus its incidence, and (2) close elections that assign incumbency status to candidates in an as-if random fashion. This strategy provides strong evidence that the large incumbency disadvantage found in Romanian local elections is caused by the incidence of corruption and the large seniority premium to corruption exploited by Romanian mayors.

Event Details:

Parking | Directions

Please register here: