Sub-Saharan Africa thirty years hence

By the year 2015, Sub-Saharan Africa's population will probably rise from a 1985 level of about 460 million to about 1.1 billion. Today Africa's population is growing at a rate of roughly 3% a year, with exceptionally high growth rates in some countries. The leaders of Africa, and those who wish to help Africa, confront difficult and urgent problems of drought, political and military conflict, accumulated debt, lower commodity prices, and other factors of immediate and important concern. Africa has given education a high priority and should be as well known for its success in increasing school enrollment as it is for its relative failures in other areas. A projected population of 1.1 billion people and a fertility rate down to 30/1000 by the year 2015 suggests that the number of children old enough to enter primary school will be of the order of 30 million a year at this time. The working-age population will grow from 235 million now to perhaps 600 million in 30 years. The urban population has been growing at about 6% a year--twice the pace of population increase. All of these situations will have an effect on environment, water, and health. Coping with Africa's burgeoning population in terms of children in school, the demand on health systems, the need for jobs, achieving an adequate diet, the provision of basic urban services, and all the rest, is an extraordinary challenge. While the government's role is critical, success at the sectoral level almost always means cost recovery, administration decentralized to the community or to the private sector, and program implementation that does not burden the budget.     

Corruption, economic growth, and income inequality in Africa

This paper uses panel data from African countries and a dynamic panel estimator to investigate the effects of corruption on economic growth and income distribution. I find that corruption decreases economic growth directly and indirectly through decreased investment in physical capital. A unit increase in corruption reduces the growth rates of GDP and per capita income by between 0.75 and 0.9 percentage points and between 0.39 and 0.41 percentage points per year respectively. The results also indicate that increased corruption is positively correlated with income inequality. The combined effects of decreased income growth and increased inequality suggests that corruption hurts the poor more than the rich in African countries. Received: March 19, 2001 / Accepted: December 14, 2001 RID="*" ID="*" An earlier version of this paper was presented at the first AmFiTan International Conference on Development Ethics in February 2000, Dar er Salaam, Tanzania. I thank two anonymous referees of this Journal for helpful suggestions. I am, however, solely responsible for any remaining errors.     

The role of the informal sector in investment in Sub-Saharan Africa

For a long time economic researchers condemned the existence of a huge informal sector in economies, viewing it as a deterrent to investment, growth and development. This view is however being confronted with intense criticism particularly in developing countries where formal unemployment is rapidly growing and poverty widely spreading, which in turn is leading to an expanding informal sector. Thus alternative schools of thought that view the informal sector as a source of livelihood to the unemployed and poor have subsequently been developed. However, not much empirical work has been carried out to validate any of these theoretical claims, particularly in African economies. This paper attempts to fill this gap. The findings of the study indicate that there is a positive relationship between informal sector activities and investment. These results suggest a review of the standard thinking towards the role of the informal sector in development.     

Political Instability and Economic Growth: Implications of Coup Events in Sub-Saharan Africa

The study examines the differential roles of various elite political instability (PI) events—successful coups d'etat, abortive coups, or coup plots—in the growth of Sub-Saharan Africa. It analyzes World Bank economic statistics and data on the incidence of coups d'etat for 31 countries in a cross-country augmented production function framework that incorporates PI events as well as labor and capital as arguments. It finds that abortive coups, rather than successful coups, had the greatest adverse impact on economic growth over the 1960–1986 period. Coup plots were also observed to be growth-inhibiting. This deleterious "direct" effect of PI is observed to be channeled via the deterioration in the marginal productivity of capital, regardless of coup event. While abortive coups negatively influenced economic growth monotonically, however, the impacts of successful coups and coup plots appeared to be non-monotonic: negative generally but positive at very low levels of investment.     

地区腐败、企业性质与高管腐败

企业所处的外部环境对企业高管腐败行为的影响日益引起学者的关注,地区腐败作为企业所处外部环境的重要特征,对企业高管腐败行为会产生何种影响?通过手工搜集2007-2013年我国各省市地方官员腐败和上市公司高管腐败的数据后发现:地区腐败越严重,所在地区的企业高管发生腐败的可能性越高;进一步研究发现,地区腐败对民营企业高管的影响作用更加明显,而2012年开始的反腐行动尚未对地区腐败影响高管腐败产生实质的约束作用。研究有助于深化对企业高管腐败环境诱因的理论认知,同时,将政府官员腐败的经济后果拓展至企业管理层面。     

Corruption in dictatorships

In this paper, we consider a simple model capable of explaining why some dictatorships choose to extract rents via seemingly inefficient institutions. In particular, this paper focuses on institutions associated with high levels of corruption and examines the conditions under which such institutions could serve the interests of a dictatorship. Developing such a model requires that we pose alternative institutions that dictators can choose to extract rents. Using this framework, this paper builds a model providing a theoretical basis for some stylized facts about the observed crosscountry variation in corruption levels. Specifically, the model motivates a rationale for the finding that higher levels of corruption are observed in countries characterized as having more heterogeneous populations, longer expected dictator tenure, and more severe punishment norms. The model is then estimated using international country level data.     

高管权力与高管腐败——基于内部控制与外部市场环境的双重视角

上市公司的高管腐败及其治理是我国反腐败的重要领域。因此,高管权力与高管腐败的关系日益受学者的关注。本文运用逻辑斯蒂模型,基于内部控制与外部市场环境的双重视角分析了高管权力诱发高管腐败行为的影响。研究发现:高管权力越大,越可能诱发高管腐败行为;内部控制质量越好,高管腐败概率越低,且高质量的内部控制可以抑制高管权力过大诱发的高管腐败行为;上市公司所在地市场化进程水平越高,高管腐败概率越低,且市场化进程水平越高越能抑制企业高管权力过大诱发的高管腐败行为。研究结果表明:良好的内部控制与外部环境是可以约束高管权力减少腐败,降低权力进行寻租的空间。     

Corruption,development and demography

This paper presents an analysis of the joint, endogenous determination of bureaucratic corruption, economic development and demographic transition. The analysis is based on an overlapping generations model in which reproductive agents mature safely through two periods of life and face a probability of surviving for a third period. This survival probability depends on the provision of public goods and services which may be compromised by corrupt activities on the part of public officials. The dynamic general equilibrium of the economy is characterised by multiple development regimes, transition between which may or may not be feasible. In accordance with empirical evidence, the model predicts that low (high) levels of development are associated with high (low) levels of corruption and low (high) rates of life expectancy. The authors are grateful for the comments of two anonymous referees on an earlier version of the paper. The usual disclaimer applies.     

信誉腐败和信息流通

信誉的腐败是我国商品经济过渡时期中存在的一个普遍问题,在商品交易中各种欺诈行为比比皆是,其严重性危害了有效市场体制的建立.从经济学角度分析,在单次双方博弈中,由于存在信息的不对称,各方都有进行商业欺诈的积极性.重复博弈虽能有效的解决这个悖论,但是在市场中,重复博弈的基础是信息的有效流通.缺乏这种基础,重复博弈无法采取"触发战略"(triger strategy),而只是单次博弈的简单重复,信誉腐败问题仍然不能得到解决,因此建立畅通的信息流通体制是恢复我国市场信誉的重要途径.     

Corruption, institutions and regulation

We analyze the effects of corruption and institutional quality on the quality of business regulation. Our key findings indicate that corruption negatively affects the quality of regulation and that general institutional quality is insignificant once corruption is controlled for. These findings hold over a number of specifications which include additional exogenous historical and geographic controls. The findings imply that policy makers can focus on curbing corruption to improve regulation, over wider institutional reform.     

Corruption, decentralization and yardstick competition

Several empirical studies have found a negative relationship between corruption and the decentralization of the powers to tax and spend. In this paper we explain this phenomenon using a model of Yardstick Competition. Using data on federal corruption-related convictions in U.S. states, we also provide new evidence that points to the existence of a spatial autoregressive component to explaining corruption. We interpret this as consistent with the theoretical findings.     

Nigeria and the Market for Corruption

Two Keynesian economists, Peter Wynarczyk and Brian Snowdon, of the Newcastle upon Type Polytechnic, resist Professor Charles Rowley's argument that economic doctries can be falsified     

洗澡的腐败风险

乌克兰新任总统下令“禁止官员上公共浴室泡澡”今年1月就任乌克兰总统的尤先科上台伊始就称,任人唯亲、欺诈和腐败是乌克兰面临的最大问题,清除腐败将是本届政府的首要任务。而尤先科总统治理政府官员腐败开出的第一剂药方竟然是“禁止官员上公共浴室泡澡”。乌克兰人素有有事     

Corruption: A Review

As is increasingly recognised in academic literature and by international organisations, corruption acts as a major deterrent to growth and development. The aim of this survey is to organise and summarise existing theoretical and empirical work on corruption with a view to identifying opportunities for further research. The paper begins with a brief overview of key definitions of corruption, and then turns to a review of the factors that favour or deter the growth of corruption together with a brief look at related models. This is followed by an examination of the consequences of corruption for society, and the consideration of measures that might help to reduce corruption. The paper ends with suggestions for future research and includes summaries of data sources and key variables for use in this research.     

Corruption clubs: endogenous thresholds in corruption and development

The relationship between corruption and economic development is characterised by three stylised facts: (i) a strong negative correlation between corruption and development (ii) countries can remain trapped in high corruption-low development or low corruption-high development equilibria (iii) amongst intermediate levels of development corruption levels are more variable, some countries have high corruption and others low corruption. This paper argues that existing models are consistent with the first two only and demonstrates how these models might be extended to capture all three. The paper searches for the location of corruption clubs within the data and provides some explanation of their cause.     

Corruption and distribution of public spending in developing countries

This paper empirically examines the impact of corruption on the structure of government spending by sector. Using the three-stage least squares method on 64 countries between 1996 and 2001, we show that public corruption distorts the structure of public spending by reducing the portion of social expenditure (education, health and social protection) and increasing the part dedicated to public services and order, fuel and energy, culture, and defense. However, civil and political rights seem to be a stronger determinant of expense on defense than corruption. Our results are robust to instrumentation by the latitude of the country.     

Corruption in the Context of International Business

Abstract

Corruption is widely accepted in the popular press as a problem for economic development and in conducting international business. Yet, it remains somewhat under-researched, particularly in an academic setting. This article describes corruption in the context of international business. It presents a critical evaluation of the conceptual and methodological issues associated with corruption. In doing so, it portrays the inherent complexities in studying this topic. The paper ends with recommendations for addressing the main concerns.     

调控新政下上市房企应对策略评析

一、新政后上市房企的应对策略表现特征 2010年第一季度房地产市场的过快发展,直接导致4月份房地产调控政策的密集出台,沪深港三地的上市房企面临新的挑战,纷纷采取不同策略予以应对,主要表现有以下三个特征。     

Transferring Marketing Concepts to Sub-Saharan African Countries:

The drive towards market-oriented economies is accelerating in many sub-Saharan African countries, resulting in numerous opportunities for teachers, scholars and educators to disseminate the business knowledge of a free market economy. Since the macroenvironmental variables (culture, politics, socioeconomic conditions, etc.) within many sub-Saharan African countries often do not lend themselves to teaching marketing as it is practiced in Western societies, a framework for an adaptive approach to lransferring marketing howledge is proposed. Realizing the significance of the local environment, a model was applied that further illustrates two broad categories involved in the teaching approach: the content to be transferred (the knowledge itself), and the rocess by which such transfer taku place. Lastly, implications for the transference of Western marketing concepts are discussed along with suggestions on how to improve the teaching of marketing knowledge in sub-Saharan Africa.     

公路工程惩治与预防腐败体系建设探究

党的十七大报告深刻阐述了坚决惩治腐败和有效预防腐败的重要性,要求全党充分认识反腐败斗争的长期性、复杂性、艰巨性,把反腐倡廉建设放在更加突出的位置.文章针对公路工程建设近年来反腐倡廉工作出现的新形势、新情况、新问题,在惩治和预防腐败体系建设方面提出自己的见解.