Essays On Public Corruption And Social Norms
Degree type
Graduate group
Discipline
Subject
mortgages
newspapers
public corruption
religion
risk preferences
Economics
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Contributor
Abstract
In Chapter 1, I model a public official’s decision to choose corruption as a function of local investigative reporting efforts by journalists, showing that the marginal effect of a decline in investigative reporting on corruption convictions is ambiguous and depends on the current level of reporting. I then use newspaper entry and exit to estimate the impact of reporting on corruption convictions in U.S. states. I find evidence that journalism is a net deterrent for state officials, but I find no evidence of an effect for federal or local officials. In Chapter 2, I look at how social norms affect decisions pertaining to risk. I use a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the impact that religious affiliation has on loan-to-value ratios in new mortgages using county-level U.S. data. I find that increased levels of religious affiliation are associated with decreased loan-to-value ratios, controlling for income, race, and loan attributes.