This paper examines the influence of government transparency on changing views regarding nuclear energy before and after Japan’s natural and nuclear disaster of 2011. Individual level data were used, covering 45 countries and containing 27,423 observations. It was observed in the majority of...

Existing research suggests that bureaucrats’ optimal behavior is to maximize their agency’s budgets, but does not account for information imperfections nor explore the tactics bureaucrats employ in maximizing their budgets. Drawing on the rational expectations literature, we propose a new...

We investigate the terms of exchange between the legislative branch of the government and an administrative bureau with standard operating procedures. An administrative bureau is a not-for-profit public organisation responsible for the production of a non-marketable good. Such a bureau is...

Notably, the 20th century was dominated by the legacy of devastating global wars, colonial struggles, and ideological conflicts as well as effort s to establish international systems that would foster global peace and prosperity. Yet, insecurity and corruption not only remain, they have become...

OECD indicators of structural policy show that policy changes in Italy since 1998 should have improved the environment for entrepreneurship significantly, but in the same period its economic performance has deteriorated noticeably. This may be partly because there is a difference between policy...

A number of popular notions and outright myths on governance and corruption are addressed in this chapter. We distinguish clearly between governance and anti-corruption, while probing the links between both notions. In so doing we challenge the conventional definition of corruption as being too...

In this discussion draft, linking research findings with concrete operational challenges, we review key issues in worldwide governance, and present recent empirical evidence. Focusing on defining and unbundling key governance components, such as rule of law, voice and accountability, corruption...

It has been argued that greater transparency is needed to reduce corruption. One way of increasing transparency is through the adoption of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. This paper uses the introduction of FOI laws as a natural experiment to determine their effect on corruption. Using a...

Academic attention to the central bank's retained profits has been scarce, although their magnitudes are nontrivial. This paper confirms that the profits retained as a reserve fund, if combined with unconstrained bureaucratic discretion, can engender inflationary bias. This result is intriguing...

This paper examines bureaucratic delay within the allocation of small infrastructure projects by sub-municipal governments in Bolivia, and it presents a randomized field experiment designed to improve public service delivery by promoting voice, transparency, and accountability among grassroots...