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.     

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 in public service delivery: An experimental analysis

To improve our understanding of corruption in service delivery, we use a newly designed game that allows us to investigate the effects of the institutional environment on the behavior of service providers and their monitors. We focus on the effect of four different factors: whether monitors are accountable to the service recipients, the degree of observability of service providers’ effort, the providers’ wages and the providers’ professional norms. In accordance with theory, we find that service providers perform better when monitors are elected by service recipients and when their effort is more easily observed. However, there is only weak evidence that service providers perform better when paid more. Monitors are more vigilant when elected and when service providers are paid more. Playing the game with Ethiopian nursing students, we also find that those with greater exposure to the Ethiopian public health sector perform less well, either as provider or as monitor, when the experiment is framed as a public health provision scenario, suggesting that experience and norms affect behavior.     

国有企业改制效果的实证研究

本文通过对1998至2003年间全部国有企业和规模以上非国有企业的数据进行分析来研究我国国有企业改制的效果。我们不仅考察了改制对企业经济效益的影响,而且考察了改制对企业社会效益指标的影响。此外,我们还分析了改制影响经济效益的渠道、国有控股和非国有控股的差别、以及改制效果的可持续性。本文的主要发现是:改制后企业经济效益显著提高,并且主要来自于代理成本的降低,表现为管理费用率的下降;改制带来了一定的社会成本,但和国际经验相比程度不是很大;国有控股改制社会效益较好,而非国有控股改制经济效益较好;改制效果在一定期间内持续。     

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 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.     

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。     

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.     

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。     

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。     

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。     

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。     

Electricity sector reform in developing countries: an econometric assessment of the effects of privatization,competition and regulation

Electricity sectors in both developed and developing countries have been subject to restructuring to introduce private capital and increase competition. Although the effects of such reforms in a number of the developed economies are now well documented, the experience of developing countries is much less well researched. This paper provides an econometric assessment of the effects of privatization, competition and regulation on the performance of the electricity generation industry using panel data for 36 developing and transitional countries, over the period 1985–2003. The study identifies the impact of these reforms on generating capacity, electricity generated, labor productivity in the generating sector and capacity utilization. The main conclusions are that on their own privatization and regulation (PR) do not lead to obvious gains in economic performance, though there are some positive interaction effects. By contrast, introducing competition does seem to be effective in stimulating performance improvements.      

The politics of growth: Can lobbying raise growth and welfare?

We consider a setup where lobbyist firms undertake contributions to an office-motivated policy maker in exchange for profit increasing regulations, in a general equilibrium model of R&D-driven growth. We find that, despite increasing concentration—which leads to higher prices and less varieties—lobbying may stimulate growth and increase welfare by means of an expansion in aggregate demand if its real costs are small. This conclusion is supported by a simple calibration exercise.     

Corruption,illegal trade and compliance with the Montreal Protocol

This paper studies the effects of corruption, rule of law and tariffs on illegal trade in chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) controlled by the Montreal Protocol. Since data on illegal trade is not available, it is not possible to test any theoretical conclusions about smuggling. The paper, however, attempts to circumvent the problem by developing a model of illegal trade in CFCs that derives predictions about the effects of corruption, rule of law and tariffs on both legal and illegal imports of CFCs. Then the theoretical predictions concerning legal imports are tested using panel data on CFC consumption. Using the estimates of legal imports, inferences about illegal trade are made. The basic findings indicate that knowledge about the degree of rule of law, corruption and the level of tariffs is needed for the correct interpretation of the data on environmental performance reported to international monitoring agencies.     

资源配置和产出效应:金融腐败的宏观经济成本

本文根据对Solow Swan模型和Ramsey模型的修订 ,把金融腐败引入生产函数和效用函数 ,研究金融腐败的宏观经济后果 ,提出四个基本结论。第一 ,金融机构通过寻租制造稀缺 ,从而扭曲了资源价格 ,导致了资源错误配置 ,由此造成金融资源使用效率的低下 ;第二 ,腐败程度与产出水平存在拉弗曲线关系 ,或者说 ,产出水平与融资腐败程度存在多重均衡 (multipleequilibria) ,融资腐败取决于经济发展中的资金需求程度和资金的稀缺性 ;第三 ,融资腐败是一种转移支付 ,是金融机构或监管部门直接或间接攫取实体经济部门的产出收益 ,这似乎是一个零和博弈 ,但是实际情况远较此复杂。由于这种转移支付的存在 ,资金市场面临进一步的短缺 ,出现“利率偏离实体经济需求的反常抬升”。因此 ,金融腐败是制造稀缺的行为 ;第四 ,我们证明了这样一个事实———由于金融腐败的存在 ,一般宏观经济学假定的从储蓄到投资的瞬间平滑过程是不符合实际情况的 ,由此才可以解释我国金融领域一个怪异而又为大家习以为常的现象 :一方面是储蓄存款余额的迅速攀升 ,另一方面是从城镇到农村持续存在的贷款难问题。