Dmitriy Vorobyev Presents at CREECA’s Lecture Series

February 2, 2018

Dmitriy’s lecture, “Political Cycles and Corruption in Russian Regions,” discussed his research on corruption and political cycles. Opportunistic incumbent politicians, both elected and appointed, adjust public policies in systematic ways over political cycles. Dmitriy’s study showed that corrupt behavior of appointed politicians also follows certain patterns, which are driven by political cycles. Russian regional governors, subject to the president’s appointment in 2004—2012, systematically changed their engagement in corruption over their terms of office depending on whether they were more or less likely to be re-appointed for another term. When a governor learns he will not be re-appointed, he has increasing incentives to engage in corrupt activities in order to accumulate wealth before his departure. Alternatively, when a governor becomes more certain that he will remain in office, he may have higher incentives to smooth rent extraction over time and thus not to increase it. This idea is tested using Russian regional data with consistently supportive evidence.