Corruption and public debt: a cross-country analysis

Using data from a large panel of countries over the period 1995–2015, this article empirically investigates the effect of corruption on public debt. Overall, the estimates reveal that corruption increases public debt. The effect, however, appears to be heterogeneous across income-related sample splits: it is stronger for advanced economies, but weaker and less statistically robust for less-developed countries, where external factors such as foreign aid may also affect public debt. The analysis suggests the inadequacy of conventional wisdom assuming that more detrimental fiscal effects of corruption arise in low-income countries.     

Corruption and public finance: an IMF perspective

Public finance should be a means whereby governments in low-income countries are able to increase economic growth and end poverty. Corruption, however, reduces tax revenue and makes public expenditure policies ineffective for achieving social objectives. The papers in this volume, which is sponsored by the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), describe how corruption makes public finance ineffective in promoting economic development.     

Corruption and public spending on education and health

Existing country and regional studies show that the effect of corruption on public spending on health and education is mixed. This letter reveals that the effect of corruption on health and education spending is significant and non-linear in a panel of 134 countries observed over two decades: For an overwhelming majority of countries, corruption has a positive effect on the share of public resources spent on public health and a negative effect in the case of education. The results presented are robust to several econometric challenges ignored in the literature.     

Corruption and culture: An experimental analysis

Why do some people choose corruption over honesty and others not? Do the social norms and values prevailing in the societies in which they grew up affect their decisions? In 2005, we conducted a bribery experiment and found that, among undergraduates, we could predict who would act corruptly with reference to the level of corruption in their home country. Among graduate students we could not. In 2007, we replicated our result and also found that time spent in the UK was associated with a decline in the propensity to bribe, although this does not explain our inability to predict graduate behaviour. We conclude that, while corruption may, in part, be a cultural phenomenon, individuals should not be prejudged with reference to their country of origin.     

行政垄断、寻租与腐败——转型经济的腐败机理分析

本文试图利用寻租经济学的方法,对中国渐进转型过程中所产生的特有的腐败形式——行政垄断的本质、成因、形式、特征进行了分析;基于现有对转型经济中腐败现象的研究,提出了转型经济中腐败现象的新的分类;并对行政垄断,主要是行业垄断的经济损失规模及租金的耗散等问题进行了初步的研究;最后,回顾了中国反垄断改革的进展,并提出了进一步改革的议程。     

Indicative bidding: An experimental analysis

Indicative bidding is a practice commonly used in sales of complex and very expensive assets. Theoretical analysis shows that efficient entry is not guaranteed under indicative bidding, since there is no equilibrium in which more qualified bidders are more likely to be selected for the final sale. Furthermore, there exist alternative bid procedures that, in theory at least, guarantee 100% efficiency and higher revenue for the seller. We employ experiments to compare actual performance between indicative bidding and one of these alternative procedures. The data shows that indicative bidding performs as well as the alternative procedure in terms of entry efficiency, while having other characteristics that favor it over the alternative procedure. Our results provide an explanation for the widespread use of indicative bidding despite the potential problem identified in the equilibrium analysis.     

Incentive effects and overcrowding in tournaments: An experimental analysis

This study reports experiments that examine outcomes when agents choose between a payment scheme that rewards based on absolute performance (i.e., piece rate) and a scheme that rewards based on relative performance (i.e., a tournament). Holding total payments in the tournament constant, performance is higher when the tournament option is winner-take-all compared to a graduated tournament (i.e., second and third-place performers also receive a payment). Performance is higher in the winner-take all tournaments even among participants that choose the piece-rate option. While there is a modest amount of overcrowding, there are no significant differences in overcrowding across conditions. Entry rates into the tournament and the relative ability of tournament entrants (compared to non-entrants in the same condition) are higher in the graduated tournament condition than the winner-take-all conditions. Consequently, the winner-take-all tournament is more efficient than the graduated tournament (incentive effects are stronger and the overcrowding is about the same), but the graduated tournament provides a more effective mechanism to identify the most capable performer in a talent pool. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at . JEL Classification D8 · J3 · L2     

新兴市场经济国家腐败对经济影响研究:基于1995-2008年实证分析

当学术界观点一致强调腐败将为国家经济发展带来巨大不良后果的同时,新兴市场经济国家却以经济快速增长且腐败较为严重的情况展现于世人。本文拟透过实证分析,以人均GDP增长率作为因变量,探讨可能影响经济发展的变量,如实际国内固定资产增长率、就业人口增长率、中学入学率、政治稳定程度、腐败程度等,探究在新兴市场经济国家中,这些因素,特别是腐败对经济增长有何影响。     

On Corruption and Countervailing Actions in Three South Asian Nations

We argue that readily available data and information in newspaper stories enable one to discern the nature and patterns of corruption and to understand actions taken to combat corruption. We analyze and compare numerous newspaper reports of corruption in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Using analysis derived from existing theory of corruption, we demonstrate how information in news accounts improves our understanding of corruption. Bangladesh had more coercive corruption, with countervailing actions dominated by direct actions of victims. In India and Sri Lanka, corruption was generally collusive, with countervailing actions on behalf of victims frequently leading to legal actions and investigative reports.     

Corruption and privatization

This paper analyses the relation between corruption and privatization. In particular, we study how corruption affects the acquisition price and the post-privatization market structure. The model predicts that privatization in countries with highly corrupt government results in a higher degree of market concentration than in countries where governments are less corrupt. The acquisition price is also likely to be higher when a government is highly corrupt than when government officials are honest or moderately corrupt. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly, we demonstrate that a stronger propensity to embezzle state revenues may reduce government officials' benefits from corruption. The reason is that the more eager the government officials are to take bribes, the cheaper they are to buy.     

Volunteering a public service: an experimental investigation

In some public goods environments it may be advantageous for heterogeneous groups to be coordinated by a single individual. This “volunteer” will bear private costs for acting as the leader while enabling each member of the group to achieve maximum potential gains. This environment is modeled as a War of Attrition game in which everyone can wait for someone else to volunteer. Since these games generally have multiple Nash equilibria but a unique subgame-perfect equilibrium, we tested experimentally the predictive power of the subgame-perfection criterion. Our data contradict that subjects saw the subgame-perfect strategy combination as the obvious way to play the game. An alternative behavioral hypothesis—that subjects were unable to predict accurately how their opponents would play and tried to maximize their expected payoff—is proposed. This hypothesis fits the observed data generally well.     

清朝三代皇帝肃贪特点及所蕴含的管理思想

清朝康熙、雍正、嘉庆三位皇帝对肃贪问题有其基本认识和做法，从中可发现其所蕴含的系统管理思想和权变管理思想。从三代皇帝的肃贪中可得到以下启示：必须把肃贪当作一项系统工程来抓；在肃贪思想及方法上要树立权变思想；真正念好肃贪的“肃、扶、养、率”四字真经。这是肃贪必须解决的三个关键问题。     

密封价格拍卖或招标中的有限腐败

本文研究了密封价格拍卖或招投标中的有限腐败问题,探讨了当行贿者通过行贿招标主持人获得多次出标机会,而其他竞标者不知道这种有限腐败行为时,对拍卖结果所产生的影响。在第二价格拍卖机制下,由于竞标者按真实估价报价总是弱占优策略,该有限腐败行为在此拍卖机制下不会产生影响。但对于密封的第一价格拍卖机制来说,由于行贿者的多个标价中的最高标价比其他竞标者的标价更强势(aggressive),导致其他竞标者获胜的概率减少,行贿者获胜的概率增加。而行贿者的其他出标机会所用的出标策略比其他竞标者的出标策略要弱势,所以在保证期望收益增加的情况下所付出的期望支付有可能比在没有腐败情形下的期望支付要低。特别地,当行贿者获得更多的出标机会时所采用的出标策略与我们的直觉是有差异的。有限腐败对于物品所有者来说是不利的,他的期望收益随着行贿者的特权的增强而减少。     

奖章与陷阱:渐进转轨中的腐败

中国在1970年代后期开始推进以市场化为导向的改革战略，国民经济和社会福利得到迅速的改善和提高，但腐败现象也比较严重；同时，市场化的推进并未能遏制住腐败的扩散，市场化程度较高的地区反而面临着更为严重的腐败现象。通过分析中国的经济转轨过程，本文对此作出了解释。与其他处于经济转轨过程中的经济体相比，中国经济发展所具有的特殊的制度安排既促成了经济的迅速成长，也引发了普遍的腐败问题。它们包括：经济决策的地方分权、双轨制市场化和集体所有的产权形式，这些要素既提高了官员推动经济增长的激励，也促使许多官员以腐败的形式分享经济增长的红利，而以“关系”为基础的社会文化背景、中央政治权威的稳定性有助于减少官员在抽租过程中对经济增长可能产生的负面影响。另外，我们认为，市场化改革对腐败可能产生两方面效应，一方面，市场化通过培育新型的企业家阶层促使大量资源由市场配置，这有助于减少腐败发生的可能性；另一方面．市场化进程通过促进经济增长提高了经济中的租金总量，这成为诱发寻租行为的因素。最终的净效应取决于政府部门的改革。发生在中国的现象可以归结为政府改革的不彻底性。     

行政腐败的宏观经济学分析

本文在增长模型中引入行政腐败和由行政腐败而引起的调整成本 ,考察其对经济增长的影响。通过模型分析得出 ,当政府公共支出的边际生产率比较高 ,税率比较低以及由腐败引致的调整成本比较高时 ,行政腐败对经济增长的负面影响占主导地位。通过对我国行政腐败与公共支出、经济增长率之间关系进行实证分析得出 :在我国市场化过程中 ,行政腐败降低了我国经济增长率 ;在我国公共支出领域 ,行政腐败行为的发生浪费了大量的公共支出。不论以受贿金额占GDP的比重 ,还是以腐败涉及县处以上官员的变动作为衡量行政腐败的指标 ,行政腐败与公共支出占GDP的比重都呈现正相关关系 ;在我国经济发展的过程中 ,存在着大量的预算外支出。预算外支出为腐败行为的发生提供了便利。而且 ,预算外支出由地方或政府官员控制 ,由此引起围绕公共支出的调整成本上升。这表明 ,预算外支出就整体而言阻碍了经济增长。     

Corruption and cross-border investment by multinational firms

Motivated by previous studies on the effect of corruption on foreign direct investment, we examine the impact of a distance measure of corruption between host and source countries on cross-border direct investment and find that corruption distance deters cross-border investment. The evidence indicates that corruption distance is not as serious a deterrent of outward direct investment from more-corrupt countries as it is from less-corrupt countries. We conclude that multinational firms with the capacity to engage in bribery can disregard this activity in transparent environments, whereas multinational firms accustomed to operating in transparent environments find it difficult to overcome the administrative complexities in corrupt environments. Journal of Comparative Economics 34 (4) (2006) 839–856.     

Measuring the Effect of Corruption on Sovereign Bond Ratings

Abstract

Instrumenting for sovereign corruption, we find that Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index which ‘ranges from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt)’, is a significant predictor of the Standard and Poor’s sovereign bond ratings ranging from 1 (Sovereign Default) to 22 (AAA) in panel data from 52 countries from 1993 to 2002. Corruption downgrades the creditworthiness of sovereign bonds by diverting loan proceeds from productive projects to less productive ones, if not to offshore accounts. In particular, a one point worsening of the corruption perception index leads to an estimated one‐notch reduction out of 22 in the sovereign bond rating.     

腐败、反腐败和中国县际收入差距

中国经济的快速增长和地区间收入差距紧密相联。虽然目前大部分研究文献都用经济因素来解释这一问题,但文章认为,地方政府的反腐败力度也是影响地方收入水平的重要因素。通过利用中国县级横截面数据以及采用普通最小二乘法,文章发现,反腐败力度越大的县的收入水平越高。利用最近发展起来的夏普里值分解法来量化各个解释变量对收入差距的贡献率,文章还发现,反腐败是解释中国县际收入差距的一个重要因素。     

An experimental evaluation of tax-reporting schedules: a case of evidence-based tax administration

In an experiment in collaboration with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), rental property schedules (RPS) were sent to taxpayers for them to itemize their deductions and return the RPS to the ATO. The intervention significantly reduced deductions compared to taxpayers who did not have to return the RPS, taxpayers who received only an information letter, and a no-contact control group—regardless of a cooperative versus deterring letter tone and first-time versus second-time participation of taxpayers. The study sheds light on the mechanisms underlying the effects of tax-reporting schedules and highlights the importance of systematic experimental fieldwork in evaluating regulatory strategies.