We investigate whether the political leaders of aid-receiving countries use foreign aid inflows to further their own political or personal interests. Aid allocation biased by leaders selfish interests arguably reduces the effectiveness of aid, negatively affecting development outcomes. We...

Delegated contracting describes a widely observable vertical contractual relationship where a top principal (program designer) hires an intermediary to offer a predesigned screening contract to a downstream agent who should produce a quantity depending on his true marginal cost type. The...

It is the prevailing approach in the public choice literature to model lobbying and corruption in the same manner. On the contrary, we attempt to capture both in the same framework (auction theory), but using different modelling approaches. We present a unified framework in which some...

Do Empires affect human values and behavior long after their demise? In several Eastern European countries, communities on both sides of the long-gone border of the Habsburg Empire have been sharing common formal institutions for 90 years now. We exploit this geographic discontinuity in a...

The `Four-Eyes-Principle' (4EP) (business has to be conducted by at least two individuals, hence four eyes) is seen as one of the most potent measures against corruption although it lacks any theoretical or empirical justification. We show in a laboratory experiment that the net effect of the...

This paper focuses on how corruption affects an important internationalization behavior of firms: the extent of control - wholly owned subsidiary or equity participation - exercised by firms involved in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Recently, scholars have recommended studying the...

In transition and developing countries, we observe rather high levels of corruption even they have democratic political systems. This is surprising from a political economy perspective, as a majority of the people generally suffers from high corruption levels. Our model based on the fact that...

This paper presents an analysis of bureaucratic corruption, income inequality and economic development. The analysis is based on a dynamic general equilibrium model in which bureaucrats are appointed by the government to implement a redistributive programme of taxes and subsidies designed to...

The paper compares different aid policy instruments and their effect on the target group. Starting from a situation where interest groups compete for the resources of the government, international financial institutions aim to change the policy outcome. They can either directly support one group...

We study the effect of international financial integration on economic development when the quality of governance may be compromised by corruption. Our analysis is based on a dynamic general equilibrium model of a small economy in which growth is driven by capital accumulation and public policy...