1. Audits for Accountability: Evidence from Municipal By-Elections in South Africa
- Author
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Wehner, Joachim and Berliner, Daniel
- Subjects
bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Political Science|Comparative Politics ,Underpinning ,Sociology and Political Science ,Public economics ,Corporate governance ,SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Political Science ,JF Political institutions (General) ,Context (language use) ,Audit ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Political Science ,SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Political Science|Comparative Politics ,Identification (information) ,Behavioral response ,Accountability ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences ,SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences ,JQ Political institutions Asia ,Business ,Empirical evidence - Abstract
Theories of retrospective accountability assume that voters punish poor governance and reward improvements, yet empirical evidence remains mixed. We extend this research to a new context, assessing the impact of audits on electoral outcomes in South African municipalities. Our novel identification strategy focuses on by-elections triggered by deaths in office of local councilors and compares those taking place before and after audit results are announced each year. We find that timely audit information affects the vote share of the responsible party, with voters rewarding improvements and punishing poor audits by about 5 percentage points. Additional individual-level survey evidence confirms the underpinning behavioral response more generally. Our study is the first to demonstrate electoral accountability effects of audit information at full scale, involving universal spatial and temporal coverage as well as public and organic dissemination.
- Published
- 2022
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