1,721,164 research outputs found
Measuring governance, corruption, and State capture - how firms and bureaucrats shape the business environment in transition economies
Full text linkAs a symptom of fundamental institutional weaknesses, corruption needs to be viewed within a broader governance framework. It thrives where the state is unable to reign over its bureaucracy, to protect property and contractual rights, or to provide institutions that support the rule off law. Furthermore, governance failures at the national level cannot be isolated from the interface between the corporate and state sectors, in particular from the heretofore under-emphasized influence that firms may exert on the state. Under certain conditions, corporate strategies may exacerbate mis-governance at the national level. An in-depth empirical assessment of the links between corporate behavior and national governance can thus provide particular insights. The 1999 Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) - the transition economies component of the ongoing World Business Environment Survey - assesses in detail the various dimensions of governance from the perspective of about 3,000 firms in 20 countries. After introducing the survey framework and measurement approach, the authors present the survey results, focusing on governance, corruption, and state capture. By unbundling governance into its many dimensions, BEEPS permits an in-depth empirical assessment. The authors pay special attention to certain forms of grand corruption, notably state capture by parts of the corporate sector - that is, the propensity of firms to shape the underlying rules of the game by"purchasing"decrees, legislation, and influence at the central bank, which is found to be prevalent in a number of transition economies. The survey also measures other dimensions of grand corruption, including those associated with public procurement, and quantifies the more traditional ("prettier") forms of corruption. Cross-country surveys may suffer from bias if firms tend to systematically over- or underestimate the extent of problems within their country. The authors provide a new test of this potential bias, finding little evidence of country perception bias in BEEPS.Small Scale Enterprise,Decentralization,Corruption&Anitcorruption Law,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Small and Medium Size Enterprises,National Governance,Governance Indicators,Corruption&Anitcorruption Law,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Economic Policy, Institutions and Governance
Empowerment as a zero-sum game
Full text linkEmpowerment of the poor does not necessarily make them better off – or make the non-poor worse off. In some cases, empowerment may be inefficient, i.e. a negative-sum game. In other cases, it is a zero-sum game, as the poor can benefit only at the expense of someone else. But in many cases, it can be positive-sum, and these opportunities should be identified and pursued by reformers. Attempts by donor organizations and NGOs to empower the poor should focus on means by which the poor are likely to be made better off without making others worse off. Not only is this approach consistent with efficiency, it will also often be the only politically feasible way to empower the poor.empowerment, development, poverty, inequality, institutinoal development, democracy
The worldwide governance indicators project : answering the critics
Full text linkThe Worldwide Governance Indicators, reporting estimates of six dimensions of governance for over 200 countries between 1996 and 2005, have become widely used among policymakers and academics. They have also attracted some explicit written criticisms. In this short paper the authors synthesize 11 critiques offered by four recent papers. They then refute them as either conceptually incorrect or empirically unsubstantiated.Governance Indicators,National Governance,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences,Economic Policy, Institutions and Governance,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures
In Search of the Holy Grail: Policy Convergence, Experimentation, and Economic Performance
Full text linkWe consider a model of policy choice in which appropriate policies depend on a country's own circumstances, but the presence of a successful leader generates an informational externality and results in too little 'policy experimentation.' Corrupt governments are reined in while honest governments are disciplined inefficiently. Our model yields distinct predictions about the patterns of policy imitation, corruption, and economic performance as a function of a country''s location vis-……-vis successful leaders. In particular, it predicts a U-shaped pattern in economic performance as we move away from the leader in the relevant space of characteristics: close neighbors should do very well, distant countries moderately well on average with considerable variance, and intermediate countries worst of all. An empirical test with the experience of post-socialist countries provides supportive results.
Transnational Trafficking, Law Enforcement and Victim Protection: A Middleman Trafficker's Perspective
Full text linkWe explore three hitherto poorly understood characteristics of the human trafficking market – the cross-border ease of mobility of traffickers, the relative bargaining strength of traffickers and final buyers, and the elasticity of buyers' demand. In a model of two-way bargaining, the exact configuration of these characteristics is shown to determine whether domestic and foreign crackdowns on illicit employment mutually reinforce or counteract one another in efforts to stem the tide of trafficking. Estimation results from a gravity model of trafficking present evidence consistent with the mutual reinforcement view, indicating considerable ease of mobility, partial bargaining power, and inelastic demand.human trafficking, two-way Nash bargaining, victim protection, law enforcement
Capital Account Openness and the Varieties of Growth Experience
Full text linkThe effects of capital account openness on economic growth may vary across countries. Some countries may not have in place the constellation of institutions required to fully benefit from open capital accounts. Other countries may realize only small marginal improvements in the wake of capital account liberalization. This paper presents evidence of an inverted-U shaped relationship between the responsiveness of growth to capital account openness and income per capita. Middle-income countries benefit significantly from capital account openness. However, neither rich nor poor countries exhibit statistically significant positive effects. A similar inverted-U shaped relationship is found between the responsiveness of growth to capital account openness and various indicators of government quality.
Measuring corruption in Eastern Europe and Central Asia : a critique of the cross-country indicators
Full text linkThis paper assesses corruption levels and trends among countries in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) based on data from several sources that are both widely used and cover most or all countries in the region. Data from firm surveys tend to show improvement in most types of administrative corruption, but little change in"state capture"in the region. Broader, subjective corruption indicators tend to show somewhat greater improvement in ECA than in non-ECA countries on average. A"primer on corruption indicators"discusses definitional and methodological differences among data sources that may account in large part for the apparently conflicting messages they often provide. This discussion concludes that depending on one's purpose, it may be more appropriate to use data from a single source rather than a composite index because of the loss of conceptual precision in aggregation. A second conclusion is that the gains in statistical precision from aggregating sources of corruption data likely are far more modest than often claimed because of interdependence among data sources. The range of detailed corruption measures available in firm surveys are exploited to show that broad, perceptions-based corruption assessments appear to measure primarily administrative corruption, despite their stated criteria placing great weight on"state capture."Finally, the paper emphasizes the need for scaling up data initiatives to fill significant gaps between our conceptual definitions of corruption and the operational definition embodied in the existing measures.Governance Indicators,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Science Education,Corruption&Anitcorruption Law
Effect of Threats to Property Rights on Economic Performance of the Manufacturing Sector of Indian States
Full text linkWe examine the effect of threats to property rights on the economic performance of the manufacturing sector of Indian states. We construct indices of the threats from data on crime against property rights. Our estimation results show that not only threats to private property, but also threats to contracts adversely affect the performance of India's manufacturing sector.Property right, Contract, Gross value added, Capital labor ratio, TFP
Institutions, Social Norms and Well-being
Full text linkThis paper discusses the intrinsic and instrumental value of governance and social norms to the well being of New Zealanders. The interaction between informal social norms and formal institutions is also discussed. An attempt is made to identify the channels and precise mechanisms through which governance and social norms respectively may impact on well-being. Empirical evidence on these effects is cited, and the relevance of the evidence to New Zealand is assessed. A range of suggestions is then presented for strengthening the governance of public institutions in New Zealand, focusing on improvements to transparency, accountability and integrity within existing constitutional arrangements. Finally, some tentative remarks are made on the potential role of government in influencing the evolution of social norms, and managing tensions between conflicting norms in New Zealand.Norms; governance; well-being; public institutions; transparency
Measuring Governance, Corruption and State Capture: How Firms and Bureaucrats Shape the Business Environment in Transition Economies
Full text linkRecent studies have focussed on the characteristics and policies of the state to explain the extent and causes of corruption, with little attention paid to the role played by firms. Consequently, the links between corporate governance and national governance have been unexplored. This paper summarises the results of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) across 20 transition economies, providing an assessment of governance and corruption from the perspective of firms. The BEEPS is part of the global World Business Environment Survey being carried out by the World Bank. The survey design permits an in-depth empirical analysis of governance and corruption, unbundling governance into its component dimensions. This allows a more detailed quantitative assessment of corruption, a more nuanced understanding of the causes of the problem and as a result a stronger foundation for policy advice. Particular attention is paid to 'state capture' by parts of the corporate sector (i.e. the propensity of firms to shape the underlying 'rules of the game' including 'purchase' of legislation and court decisions). The survey also provides measures of other dimensions of 'grand corruption', such as that related to public procurement. Typically, cross-country surveys suffer from a potential bias if firms have a tendency to systematically over- or under-estimate the extent of problems in their own country. We implement a simple method for evaluating the extent of this 'country perception bias' and find little evidence pointing to such bias in the BEEPS.Governance, corruption, state capture, transition economies
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