Nigeria is going through a difficult political and economic transition after decades of independence.Yet, Nigeria remains a society rich in cultural, linguistic, religious, ethnic and political diversity. Today, the average Nigerian struggles hard to make ends meet; sees himself or herself as...

In this paper we investigate how “civil service” personnel management interacts with bureaucratic discretion to create high capacity, expert bureaucracies populated by policy-motivated agents. We build a model in which bureaucrats may invest in (relationship specific) policy expertise, and...

Conviction rates in Japan exceed 99 percent -- why? On the one hand, because Japanese prosecutors are badly understaffed they may prosecute only their strongest cases and present judges only with the most obviously guilty defendants. On the other, because Japanese judges can be reassigned by the...

Corruption scandals seem to abound in countries that have recently undergone reform. Despite the proliferation of stories in the news media, no one has examined whether reform—be it democratization or economic liberalization or both—actually causes an increase in corruption. Theory provides...

This paper builds on Faure-Grimaud and Martimort’s [Economics Letters 71 (2001) 75-82] analysis of intermediated contracting. I argue that intermediated contracting permits one form of auditing, in which the sub-contract offered to the firm is examined, contingent on the intermediary’s...

There has been an explosion of new forms of communications media for interpersonal communication. There is anecdotal evidence of people suffering from 'information overload' as a result of these developments. This paper presents the results from, and analysis of, a case study of a perceived...

This paper examines the mechanics of intertemporal information provision in {\em dynastic governments}. It has been suggested that ``horizontal accountability," i.e., a system of governance where auditing functions lie outside the executive branch, can ensure credible disclosure of information....

Governmental contracts may be renegotiated after political changes. Current governments can anticipate this and strategically distort contracts to influence renegotiation outcomes. In this sequential common agency game, the initial contract impacts elements of the renegotiation process: outside...

Economic organization of the imaginary worlds depicted in popular literary works may be viewed as a mirror to public opinion on the economic organization of life. If a book becomes a best-seller, it is because the book conveys messages, feelings, and events the readers can relate to. In other...

Globalisation, governance and economic performance affect each other in very complex mutual relationships. In this paper, we establish a clear and well-circumscribed hypothesis: “is there an effect of globalisation on governance?” To test this hypothesis or, even more specifically, to test...