[eng] Michael JOHNSTON — Corruption and democracy : threats to development, opportunities for reform. Democratization, economic development and corruption are intertwined. In some countries affluence, democracy and moderate to low levels of corruption reinforce each other ; elsewhere, poverty,...

Many societies have limited corruption through the broad-based mobilization of a diverse range of interests willing and able to defend themselves by making meaningful demands for accountability of, and limits on, official power, and for an end to illicit advantages enjoyed by others....

I investigate the effects of trust on human capital measured as average years of schooling in U.S. states using data from the 1980s and the 1990s. I find robust evidence that an increase in trust increases schooling across U.S. states. According the results of the seemingly unrelated regression...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between measures of ethnic and religious heterogeneity on the one hand and measures of inequality and redistribution on the other, using state-level US data. Design/methodology/approach – The relationship between...

Using recently developed indices of fractionalization and polarization, we analyze the direct and indirect effects of ethnic and religious heterogeneity on income inequality and on welfare programs across US states. We find strong evidence (1) that there is a positive relationship between ethnic...

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 propose...

We investigate the relationship between economic freedom and corruption using data from U.S. states covering almost a quarter of a century. Our study advances the existing literature on several fronts. First, instead of using subjective cross-country corruption indices assembled by various...

I analyze the effects of ethnic and religious diversity on corruption. Using data from US states, I find a positive and linear relationship between ethnic/religious polarization and corruption and an inverse-U-shaped relationship between ethnic/religious fractionalization and corruption.