The influence of lobbying activity on economic growth and welfare is widely observed in the literature. Many scholars consider lobbying as a sort of rent-seeking and blame it for non-optimal redistribution of assets, additional costs for firms, and resource reallocation from productive...

The motivation of civil servants has a considerable impact on their decision-making and thus the performance of a bureaucratic agency. This paper studies how innovative and error-correcting behavior of Russian public civil servants correlates with three types of motivation: public service...

Augmenting behavioral public administration to occupational intention research we investigate the link between three types of motivation, and the intention of students to work in civil service after graduation. We make detailed observations of the self-reported job preferences of 2nd public...

In my paper I analyze why some top-level public administrators invite a peer review to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of their agencies while others do not. A peer review is a light-touch voluntary benchmarking exercise conducted by a group of critical friends (peers). I propose a...

Economists tend to reduce all corruption to impersonal market-like transactions, ignoring the role of social ties in shaping corruption. In this paper, we show that this simplification substantially limits the understanding of corruption. We distinguish between market corruption (impersonal...

Throughout much of the world, corruption in the civil service undermines state capacity, impedes economic development, and saps citizens' morale. But while its pernicious effects are widely recognized, the roots of corruption remain poorly understood. Whereas most studies on corruption's origins...

The efficiency of social reforms in different countries mostly depends on the extent to which they can be accepted by the population. However, even if problems are similar, the reasons may differ, which can make it difficult to apply existing laws of one state to another. Bribery is a typical...

Corruption is widely spread across the world and is believed to affect economic growth negatively. It is most persistent in the developing countries. Russian economy is not an exception. Significant losses are also reported in public procurement in Russia due to corruption. Unfortunately, to...

A vital aspect of improving governance involves spearheading its strategic dimension and making current policy activities more closely aligned with the goals and objectives of sustainable growth. At the same time, implementation of strategic management is associated with considerable costs for...

The Russian Constitutional Court (RCC) has over time developed a practice of adopting so-called “positive dismissals” (Pozitivnoe Opredelenie) which complements (but also undermines) the existent formal procedure of only delivering decisions on merits with Rulings (Postanovlenie). The paper...