This paper develops a proxy measure of the inequality of influence on the basis of survey evidence from 2002 Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) conducted among 6,500 firms in 27 transition countries. We refer to the resulting inequality as crony bias in the political...

Based on the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) of firms in transition countries, which unbundles corruption to measure different types of corrupt transactions and provide detailed information on the characteristics and performance of firms, we find that: i)...

Recent studies have focussed on the characteristics and policies of the state to explain the extent and causes of corruption, with little attention paid to the role played by firms. Consequently, the links between corporate governance and national governance have been unexplored. This paper...

In environments where regulations are lax and controls function badly, cleanly participating in tenders is irrational. An increase in one single firm’s propensity to bribe induces the same behaviour upon the others (“bad apple effect”), and the likelihood of firms to bribe tends to...

The particular point that will be stressed in this paper is that benefits derived from corrupt behaviour depend on institutions devised to discourage it. The analytical framework used to explore the symmetric tragedies of the commons and the anticommons outlined by James Buchaman and Yong J....

This paper analyses the anti-corruption activities of 24 transition countries in the period 1999-2002. These activities are divided into omnibus anti-corruption programmes, legislative reform aimed at tackling corruption, and adherence to international anti-corruption conventions. The paper...

We investigate the outcome of an auction where the auctioneer approaches one of the two existing bidders and offers an opportunity for him to match his opponent's bid in exchange for a bribe. In particular, we examine two types of corruption arrangements. In the first case, the auctioneer...

This paper examines causes of the persistence of corruption among elected politicians and the effectiveness of some commonly discussed anti-corruption reforms. We study a theoretical model of competition between two candidates who differ both in ability and popularity in a probabilistic voting...

Genuine saving measures net investment in produced, natural and human capital. It is a necessary condition for weak sustainable development that genuine saving not be persistently negative. However, according to data provided by the World Bank, resource-rich countries are systematically failing...

This paper examines why some transitions are more successful than others by focusing attention on the role of productive, protective and predatory behaviors from the perspective of the new institutional economics. Many transition economies are characterized by a fundamental inconsistency between...