Estimating the costs of political populism: Traffic violation pardons in Korea

Since 1995, four presidents have granted six traffic violation pardons in Korea, and 24.6 million individuals have been the beneficiaries of these pardons. The objective of this paper is to explore how costly traffic violation pardons are by finding out the effects of traffic violation pardons on traffic accidents, and then estimating the economic costs caused by traffic violation pardons. Traffic violation pardons have the effect of raising traffic accidents by 4.3% and 3.6% per year and the economic costs of traffic accidents by 4.2% and 3.5% per year for two consecutive years after the pardons are granted.

► We estimate the costs of traffic violation pardons (TVPs) to society.
► TVPs raise traffic accidents by 4.3% and 3.6% per year for two consecutive years.
► TVPs increase the economic costs of traffic accidents by 4.2% and 3.5% per year.