1 Political Institutions and Corruption: An Experimental Examination of the “Right to Recall”

Countries around the world are concerned with corruption as it potentially undermines confidence in government and may reduce the efficiency of public goods provision. While there has been a significant amount of research devoted to identifying the causes of corruption there has been little empirical research on the impact of political institutions on corruption. Given that many nascent governments are establishing new political systems, the time is right for understanding the role that political institutions may play in enhancing or mitigating corruption. This paper uses a series of laboratory experiments to examine the impact of the ‘right to recall government officials ’ on the level of government corruption. We find experimental evidence suggesting that such an institution can decrease the level of corruption in government through the increased accountability it imposes on elected politicians, and equity of the system, in terms of income distribution, may also be enhanced