When there are no journalists to hold politicians accountable, governments stop functioning efficiently and costs start rising, according to a new working paper by Pengji (Paul) Gao, a professor at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

“Financing Dies in Darkness? The Impact of Newspaper Closures on Public Finance” found that newspapers hold local governments accountable in a number of ways. The team behind the study examined 1,600 English-language newspapers serving 1,266 counties across the country between 1996 and 2015.

“When local newspapers aren’t there to hold governments accountable, we see costs increase due to a lack of scrutiny over local deals,” said Gao. “With the loss of local news coverage also come higher long-term borrowing costs for cities, more so than in neighboring counties.”

The increase in borrowing costs usually only happens when the last local newspaper disappears. This indicates that it is removing the paper’s watchdog function – and not economics – that causes this.

Gao also said that other government inefficiencies develop after local newspapers disappear.

“We see higher likelihoods of costly advance refunding and negotiated issues, and higher government wages, employees, and tax revenues,” he said.