Does political finance reform reduce corruption? This study argues yes. It contends that reforms mitigating private money’s influence and increasing sanctions against corrupt behavior effectively lower corruption levels.

The evidence comes from elite interviews in Paraguay following its political finance reforms, which illuminate the mechanisms behind this potential effect. The authors also test their argument using a novel dataset of 175 countries spanning from 1900 to 2015, tracking public subsidies.

They supplement this with detailed corruption measures from the Varieties of Democracy project. Even when reforms are unevenly implemented across nations, they still appear to make a difference in reducing corruption.