I investigate the relation between corruption and the composition of state government spending in the United States. The analysis reveals that the United States is not immune to the adverse effects of corruption documented in cross-country studies. Corruption lowers the share of state government...

This paper sheds light on the heavy financial burden on peasants in China's fiscal decentralization system. Using a political economy framework, this paper explores the tax-farming nature of China's fiscally decentralized system and examines why the system incurs a particularly heavy financial...

In Italy, the corruption is a social phenomenon affecting the health sector. In this paper we show that the impact of corruption on Italian health expenditure is positive, along with ageing population, technological change and supply factors inducing demand in pharmaceuticals and...

This paper investigates the relation between public corruption and the composition of state government expenditures in the United States. The results suggest that the United States is not immune to the adverse effects of corruption that have been documented using country-level expenditure data....

We study the effect of links between politicians on corruption under prevailing clientelism. Connections between politicians increase fabricated "ghost" students to obtain more national transfers, without raising the quality or quantity of education. Bureaucratic turnover, temporary and...

The paper focuses on the recent pattern of government expenditure for developing countries and estimates the determinants which may have influenced government expenditure. Using a panel data set for 111 developing countries from 1984 to 2004, this study finds evidence that political and...

The WTO's plurilateral Agreement on Government Procurement ("the GPA" or "the Agreement") is an important ongoing success story for the Organization. In March 2012, the GPA Parties completed a comprehensive revision of the Agreement, encompassing both its text and coverage (market access...

To date, government procurement has been effectively carved out of the main multilateral rules of the WTO system. This paper examines the systemic and other ramifications of this exclusion, from both an economic and a legal point of view. In addition to relevant elements of the WTO Agreements,...

Economic growth is below what would be needed to resume rapid convergence to average OECD living standards. On-going efforts to improve the business climate are laudable, but need to be widened and strengthened. Much progress has been achieved in reducing red tape, but it is only recently that...

To date, government procurement has been effectively carved out of the main multilateral rules of the WTO system. This paper examines the systemic and other ramifications of this exclusion, from both an economic and a legal point of view. In addition to relevant elements of the WTO Agreements,...