The relationship between corruption, particularly when systemic, and the rule of law is a circular one. On the one hand, corruption undermines the rule of law; on the other hand, a weak rule of law facilitates corruption. In a sort of parasitic relationship, corruption quickly attaches to the...

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...

The "revolving door" phenomenon has become very common in most industrialised countries, and is leading to conflicts of interest as well as economic distortions. The purpose of this paper is to develop an indicator of the distortionary effects of the revolving door - The Revolving Door Indicator...

This paper examines how private equity returns in Asia are related to levels of legal protection and corruption. We utilize a unique data set comprising over 750 returns to private equity transactions across 20 developing and developed countries in Asia. The data indicate that legal protections...

High-profile corporate scandals earlier in this decade provoked outrage and legislative action, however corporate executive-level ethical lapses continue to come to light. This article examines the work of Professor Dunfee and his co-authors on corruption, ethical leadership, and social...

Six new aggregate measures capturing various dimensions of governance provide new evidence of a strong causal relationship from better governance to better development outcomes. In a cross-section of more than 150 countries, Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobaton provide new empirical evidence of a...

In a decade of transition, fear of a leviathan state is giving way to increased focus on oligarchs who "capture the state." In the capture economy, the policy and legal environment is shaped to the captor firm`s huge advantage, at the expense of the rest of the enterprise sector. This has major...

This paper reports on the latest update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2006: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government...

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...