Incentivizing anticorruption reform: Evidence from a natural experiment in Mexican subnational legislatures

Abstract

While popular with voters, politicians rarely advance anticorruption policies because they can personally inconvenience them. When do the benefits of anticorruption reform outweigh the costs? I explore the role of electoral incentives by leveraging original data on over 600 anticorruption initiatives introduced to state legislatures in Mexico and an overlap between two reforms—one that required states to create local anticorruption systems and one that lifted an 80-year-old ban on reelection. Results show that legislators with reelection incentives were more likely to advance anticorruption initiatives and more likely to comply with the creation of local anticorruption systems. Findings underscore that while anticorruption reform is often met with resistance because corruption benefits those in power, electoral incentives can generate conditions under which reform takes place.