Using exogenous variation in the salaries of local legislators across Brazil’s municipal governments this paper examines whether higher wages attract better quality politicians and improve political performance. The analysis exploits discontinuities in wages across municipalities induced...

In this paper, how social preferences overcome the commitment problems implicit in vote-buying is examined. Data used for the study is a survey information on vote-buying experienced in a 2006 municipal election in Paraguay, with information on behavior in experiments carried out in 2002....