We use a difference‐in‐differences design to estimate the causal impact of the adoption of dry laws in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area (SPMA) on violent behaviour. Dry laws cause a 10% reduction in homicides. Similar impacts were found on battery and deaths by car accidents.

O s partidos brasileiros são importantes eleitoralmente? Durante muito tempo, houve um quase consenso entre os pesquisadores na resposta negativa a esta pergunta. Após a definição das candidaturas, as campanhas eleitorais seriam conduzidas pelos candidatos de forma individual e isolada. Entretanto, pesquisas relativamente recentes questionam a abordagem tradicional apresentando dados empíri-cos que sugerem uma perspectiva mais matizada quanto à importân-cia eleitoral dos partidos. Esta divergência entre o que seria esperado e o que é observado colocou um novo problema de pesquisa em busca de explicação.Por exemplo, alguns autores têm atestado a queda da volatilidade eleitoral no Brasil desde antes da redemocratização 1 . Apesar de esta queda não ter sido homogênea, ela tem sido consistente ao longo das últimas décadas e deve colocar a volatilidade eleitoral brasileira perto da mé-dia dos países democráticos. De acordo com Mainwaring e Torcal (2006), a média da volatilidade eleitoral no Brasil entre 1982 e 2002 foi de 24,1%, um valor mediano em um grupo de 39 países majoritaria-

This study contributes to the health governance discussion by presenting a new data set that allows for comparisons of the management of health resources among Brazilian municipalities. Research on Brazil is particularly important as the provision of health services was decentralized in 1988 and since then municipalities have been given greater responsibilities for the management of fiscal resources for public health service provision. Based on detailed information on corruption practices (such as over-invoicing, illegal procurement and fake receipts) from audit reports of health programmes in 980 randomly selected Brazilian municipalities, this study deepens understanding of the relationship between health governance institutions and the incidence of corruption at the local level by exploring the extent to which horizontal and vertical accountabilities contribute to reducing the propensity of municipal government officials to divert public health resources for private gain. The results of our multiple regression analysis suggest that the experience of health municipal councils is correlated with reductions in the incidence of corruption in public health programmes. This impact is significant over time, with each additional year of health council experience reducing corruption incidence levels by 2.1% from baseline values. The findings reported in this study do not rely on the subjectivity of corruption measures which usually conflate the actual incidence of corruption with its perception by informants. Based on our results, we provide recommendations that can assist policy makers to reduce corruption.

This paper documents a rare phenomenon: the consequence of the dominance of a single criminal gang in the city of São Paulo, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). Using unique data to identify entry in geographically well-delimited areasthe Favelas-we explore the timing of the expansion of geographical dominance to estimate the causal impact of its dominance on property and violent crime. Pax Monopolista caused a reduction in violent crime but no impact on property crime. Small sections of text, that are less than two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission as long as this document is stated. Findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of its author(s), and it cannot be, in any way, attributed to CAF, its Executive Directors or the countries they represent. CAF does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and is not, in any way, responsible for any consequences resulting from its use.