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Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from US States

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  • Quoc-Anh Do

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Filipe Campante

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states, in line with the view that this isolation reduces accountability, and in contrast with the alternative hypothesis that it might forestall political capture. We then provide direct evidence that the spatial distribution of population relative to the capital affects different accountability mechanisms over state politics: newspaper coverage, voter knowledge and information, and turnout. We also find evidence against the capture hypothesis: isolated capitals are associated with more money in state-level campaigns. Finally, we show that isolation is linked with worse public good provision.

Suggested Citation

  • Quoc-Anh Do & Filipe Campante, 2013. "Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from US States," Working Papers hal-03460928, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03460928
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03460928
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R50 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - General

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