Purpose

This paper argues that decentralization reforms in Colombia, implemented since the 1980s, have led to the decentralization of political clientelism rather than its demise. Clientelism is a system of political and economic institutions that turns every local democracy into an extractive political institution. The authors theoretically demonstrate that an increase in public resources will increase corruption.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors develop and test a subnational public choice model, where clientelism in elections and corruption in public administration constitute a stable long-term institutional equilibrium. The model comprises two linked subgames: electoral tournament and corruption in public policy. The model makes two predictions that currently oppose predominant approaches: (1) increasing the severity of jail sentences to electoral crimes increases their price and the predominance of machine politics, instead of improving the quality of electoral tournaments and (2) increasing local governments' public finance increases clientelism in elections and corruption in public administration.

Findings

The authors find evidence in favor of the theoretical model of curse of public resources, using difference-in-differences estimation with a database 2016–17 of Colombia's 1,034 municipalities. This country is well-suited for our analysis because it has a long-term commitment to formal democratic processes (since 1958), while plagued by endemic corruption and clientelism problems.

Originality/value

(1) The theoretical approach is innovative and disruptive of current models on the problem, (2) the model builds upon the Colombian situation, a country with prominent corruption and political violence problems regardless of its relatively long-term commitment with free elections (since 1958) and (3) the theoretical discussion is tested using a comprehensive set of difference-in-differences estimations.

中文翻译：

---

地方民主国家的政治机器和公共资源的诅咒

目的

本文认为，哥伦比亚自 1980 年代以来实施的权力下放改革导致了政治依附主义的权力下放，而不是其消亡。依附主义是一种政治和经济制度体系，它将每一个地方民主国家变成一个榨取式政治制度。作者从理论上证明，公共资源的增加会增加腐败。

设计/方法/方法

作者开发并测试了一个地方公共选择模型，其中选举中的依附主义和公共行政中的腐败构成了稳定的长期制度平衡。该模型包括两个相互关联的子博弈：选举竞赛和公共政策腐败。该模型做出了两个目前反对主流方法的预测：（1）增加对选举犯罪的监禁刑罚会增加其价格和机器政治的主导地位，而不是提高选举比赛的质量；（2）增加地方政府的公众金融增加了选举中的依附主义和公共行政中的腐败。

发现

作者通过对哥伦比亚 1,034 个城市的 2016-17 年数据库进行差异估计，找到了支持公共资源诅咒理论模型的证据。这个国家非常适合我们的分析，因为它长期致力于正式的民主进程（自 1958 年以来），同时受到地方性腐败和依附主义问题的困扰。

原创性/价值

(1) 理论方法具有创新性，颠覆了当前有关该问题的模型，(2) 该模型建立在哥伦比亚的情况下，该国腐败和政治暴力问题突出，尽管其相对长期致力于自由选举（自1958) 和 (3) 理论讨论使用一套综合的差异估计进行测试。