With Great Power Comes Great Private Returns?

Using data from elections in Brazil, I will employ a Difference-in-Difference strategy (DiD) and Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to estimate the private returns of electoral victory in the State and Federal legislative assemblies. The main DiD specification estimates that winners have 61 percent higher private returns as opposed to their losing counterparts. The Regression Discontinuity Design, however, estimates an insignificant difference between narrowly elected and losing candidates. Overall, this suggests that electoral victory as a state or federal deputy may increase private assets, but it remains to be investigated if the candidates' self-reported assets reveal the "true" private returns and if an increase in post-election assets is a result of corruption