This paper explores, both formally and empirically, the political accountability mechanisms that lie behind the varying levels of public corruption and of effective governance taking place across nations. The first section develops a principal-agent model in which good governance is a function...

This report moves beyond the conventional scope of economics to examine three entrenched structural factors -demography, geography and institutions- that are closely connected to economic and social development. Historical in nature and slow to evolve, these variables are not always in the...