Korruption ist ein globales Phänomen, das vor allem für viele Entwicklungsländer als Wachstumsbremse wirkt. Der Beitrag zeigt, wie man mittels eines einfachen industrieökonomischen Modells die Wirkungsmechanismen der Korruption analysieren kann. Korruption hält Unternehmen vom Markteintritt...

This paper develops a simple framework to analyze the links between corruption and the unofficial economy and their implications for the official economy. In a model of self-selection with heterogeneous entrepreneurs, we show that the entrepreneurs' option to flee to the underground economy...

This paper provides a simple model of corruption dynamics with the ratchet effect. Corrupt officials have ex post the incentive to price discriminate entrepreneurs based on the entry decisions made in an earlier period. The inability of government officials to commit to future money demands...

This paper provides a simple model of repeated extortion. In particular, we ask whether corrupt government officials' ex post opportunism to demand more once entrepreneurs have made sunk investments entails further distortion in resource allocations. We show that the inability of government...

Many recent studies have looked at the macroeconomic, cultural and institutional determinants of corruption at the cross-national level. This study complements these existing cross-country studies by focusing on firm-level evidence of microeconomic factors affecting bribes paid in a single...

I study data on bribes actually paid by individuals to public officials, viewing the results through a theoretical lens that considers the implications of trust networks. A bond of trust may permit an implicit quid pro quo to substitute for a bribe, which reduces corruption. Appropriate networks...

We present a model where groups attempt to exert influence on policies using both bribes (plata, Spanish for silver) and the threat of punishment (plomo, Spanish for lead). We then use it to make predictions about the quality of a country’s public officials and to understand the role of...

We investigate one possible explanation for observed rates of corrupt behavior namely that individual decision makers who frequently engage in illegal actions may underestimate the overall probability of being caught. This might in particular be true for petty corruption where small amounts of...

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...

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...