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We present a model where groups attempt to influence policies using both bribes (plata, Spanish for silver) and the threat of punishment (plomo, Spanish for lead). We then use it to make predictions about the quality of a country's public officials and to understand the role of institutions granting politicians with immunity from legal prosecution. The use of punishment lowers the returns from public office and reduces the incentives of high-ability citizens to enter public life. Cheaper plomo and more resources subject to official discretion are associated with more frequent corruption and less able politicians. This predicts that violence in a country will typically go together with corruption and worse politicians. Moreover, the possibility of punishment changes the nature of the influence game, so that even cheaper plata can lower the ability of public officials. Protecting officials from accusations of corruption (immunity) will decrease the frequency of corruption if the judiciary is weak and may increase the quality of politicians. These predictions cannot emerge from a traditional model where only bribes are used.
The positive evils and dangers of the representative, as of every other form of government, may be reduced to two heads: first, general ignorance and incapacity, or, to speak more moderately, insufficient mental qualifications, in the controlling body; secondly, the danger of its being under the influence of interests not identical with the general welfare of the community.
-John Stuart Mill
During their first week in office, Colombian judges and other public officials involved in the antidrug war often receive a message asking: "Plata o plomo?" The message originates from the drug cartels and is Spanish for "Silver or lead?" It reminds public officials that there is an alternative to fighting drugs and receiving plomo (Spanish for lead, as in bullets) which is to not fight drugs and receive plata (Spanish for silver or money, as in a bribe). Bowden (2001) writes about the ways of the former head of the Medellin Cartel, Pablo Escobar Gaviria: "Pablo was establishing a pattern of dealing with the authorities... It soon became known simply as plata o plomo. One either accepted Pablo's plata (silver) or his plomo (lead). Death was his strategy against extradition, that and money. His policy of plata o plomo became...