Obesity of politicians and corruption in Ukraine in 2000–2020– Reply

We collected 469 frontal face images of Ukrainian cabinet ministers who were in office in 2000–2020. For each image, the minister's body mass index was estimated using a computer vision algorithm. The time series of median estimated body mass index of cabinet ministers co-moves over time with two existing measures of corruption – World Bank worldwide governance indicator Control of Corruption, and the discrepancy between the quantity of luxury wristwatches exported from Switzerland to Ukraine (reported by Swiss statistics) and the corresponding quantity imported by Ukraine from Switzerland (reported by Ukrainian statistics).     

The major determinants of logistic performance in a global perspective: evidence from panel data analysis

The global logistics industry has grown significantly and logistics has become an important sector of the business economic system and a major global economic activity in recent years. Logistics activities accelerate economic and productivity growth. Efficient logistics is also important to a country’s competitiveness and source of employment. The purpose of this paper is to uncover and understand the major determinants of logistics performance (LP) to further lift the LP of countries. Using unbalanced panel data of 93 selected countries from 2007 to 2014, the present research attempts to critically investigate the major determinants of LP. In estimating the model, this study prefers to use static panel data approach owing to limited data. The findings of the present study reveal that (a) countries with low level of corruption and stable political environment are likely to yield a high level of LP; (b) improvement in resources supply such as infrastructure, technology, labour, and education also have a significant positive effect on LP. Therefore, institutional reforms and upgrading resources will effectively accelerate LP.     

Sponsorship programmes and corruption in sport: management responses to a growing threat

Abstract

Sponsorship programmes are increasingly being exposed to the threat of corruption in sport. Several recent notable cases of corruption have exposed sponsors and their investments to significant perceived pressures including negative consumer associations with athletes, teams and officials that have been found guilty of engaging in corrupt activity. How sponsors respond to such instances of corruption in sport forms the basis of this paper. Drawing from an analysis of corruption cases (n = 2089), the paper initially examines the nature of corruption in sport. Through interview data (n = 21), it subsequently identifies key factors that sponsors should take into consideration when deciding upon a course of action to mitigate any potential effects of corrupt activity by a sporting property they are associated with. Finally, the paper discusses those courses of action.     

The curse of natural resources in the transition economies*

The curse of natural resources is a well‐documented phenomenon for developing countries. Economies that are richly endowed with natural resources tend to grow slowly. Among the transition economies of the former ‘Eastern Bloc’, a similar pattern can be observed. This paper shows that a large part of the variation in growth rates among the transition economies can be attributed to the curse of natural resources. After controlling for numerous other factors, there is still a strong negative correlation between natural resource abundance and economic growth. Among the transition economies the prime reasons for the curse of natural resources were corruption and a neglect of basic education. In order to overcome the curse of natural resources and move to a sustainable path of development, the resource abundant transition countries should fight corruption and ensure that their resource revenues are invested in human capital or the preservation of natural capital.     

Regionalization, public spending and growth: a stylized model dealing with ‘predatory states’

In this paper, a micro-founded model analyzing the effects of ‘regionalization’ on economic activity is developed. It shows that the spatial division of public competencies can have an impact on the growth rate via the efficiency of governmental choices: initially advantageous for weak levels, decentralization (/reduction of regional size) becomes limited due to the risk of underestimation of the real profitability of public expenditure by local governments (non-internalized cross-border effects). In accordance with the theory, a transversal estimation for a sample of 51 countries for the 1990s establishes a ‘bell-shaped’ relation between indicators of regionalization and the quality of governance.     

政治体制上端改革:反腐败斗争的迫切需要

我国的反腐败已经进入了一个特殊的高原期,能否实现政治体制上端的重大改革,是决定中国反腐败能否实现突破的关键。政治体制上端改革要坚持三个不动摇、发展党内民主、完善人民代表大会制度和改革政党制度,可以建立"廉洁岛"式的政治特区。     

反腐倡廉亟需加强干部经济责任审计

本文结合当前干部队伍中的一些经济犯罪和腐败现象,对建立和加强干部经济责任审计制度的紧迫性和必要性,以及在反腐倡廉中的重要作用进行了论述,并针对工作中的实际问题探讨了审计方法。     

Trade intensity,country size and corruption

Abstract. Several authors claim to provide evidence that governmental corruption is less severe in countries where trade intensity is higher or populations are smaller. We argue that theory is highly ambiguous on these questions, and demonstrate that empirical links between corruption and trade intensity – or country size, strongly related to trade intensity – are sensitive to sample selection bias. Most available corruption indicators provide ratings only for those countries in which multinational investors have the greatest interest: these tend to include almost all large nations, but among small nations only those that are well-governed. We find that the relationship between corruption and trade intensity disappears, using newer corruption indicators with substantially increased country coverage. Similarly, the relationship between corruption and country size weakens or disappears using samples less subject to selection bias. Received: July 2001 / accepted: April 2002 We thank Anand Swamy and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions, Paul Schorosch for able research assistance, and Ray Fisman, Roberta Gatti, Aart Kraay, and Shang-jin Wei for kindly providing data. The conclusions of this paper are not intended to represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.     

The risk-return trade-off in human capital investment

In this paper, we analyze investments in human capital in a way which is standard for financial assets, but not (yet) for human capital assets. We study mean-variance plots of human capital assets. We compare the properties of human capital returns using a performance measure and by using tests for mean-variance spanning. Fields differ strongly not only in common rates of return, but also in return per unit of risk. We identify a range of educations that are efficient in terms of investment goods, and a range of educations that may be chosen for consumption purposes.     

腐败与国际直接投资关系研究综述

腐败与FDI关系研究是制度与经济增长关系研究的一个新兴分支,也是近年来新制度经济学和国际投资理论研究的前沿问题.目前学术界的研究主要围绕四个方面进行:腐败对国际资本流动类型的影响;东道国腐败对FDI总量的影响;东道国腐败对FDI构成的影响;东道国和投资国腐败程度差异对FDI的影响,且实证研究的结果一般支持腐败对FDI流入的负效应.对已有的研究成果进行梳理和总结,有助于后续的相关研究.