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Over the last decades, the fight against corruption has taken a preponderant role in public opinion and in the citizens' relations with state institutions in Latin America. This article assesses whether territorial auditing, namely, the auditing of the public budgets of local state entities, has contributed to making this phenomenon visible and disincentive acts of corruption that affect citizens. Estimating multilevel regression models with data from citizen surveys and administrative information from territorial comptrollers' offices in Colombia showed that citizen perception of corruption is higher when territorial comptrollers' offices are more efficient and effective. In addition, in territories where municipal comptroller's offices are absent and the auditing is carried out by departmental offices, there is a higher probability that officials will request bribes from citizens who use their services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the effects of paying bribes for public social services on citizens' redistributive preferences? Research about social policies feedback effects has focused on developed countries and has ignored the role of corruption experiences in redistributive preferences in developing nations. Redistribution requires state capacity. Paying bribes to use social services undermines confidence in state capacity to provide redistributive social services with impartiality in the future. Analysis of six waves of Latin American Public Opinion Project (lapop) surveys in 18 Latin American countries shows that individuals who had to pay bribes to access social services are less inclined to support redistribution and the public provision of health services and that these effects are stronger among poor users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]