Resumen: La corrupción se puede definir como "el abuso de la autoridad o confianza pública con fines privados". Sin embargo, esta definición sugiere que la corrupción es una enfermedad de la sociedad y no un síntoma resultante de problemas estructurales como la inequidad o falta de...

The paper examines the division of tasks required between politicians and bureaucrats to run an effective rural employment guarantee scheme (EGS) in India, in the context of Indian history and habits. There are still weaknesses in the incentive structure of the new nationwide EGS. First, there...

In many countries, the process of obtaining government approval for different projects involves interaction with multiple government agencies at various levels. This often makes the approval process inefficient by unnecessary lengthening it. In this paper we study the effect of a re-organization...

Recent work in the area of tax evasion and fiscal corruption in LDCs has highlighted incentive theory and has produced some useful innovations in measurement. An interesting contrarian strain of research suggests that corruption and smuggling are sometimes use as tools of government, instead of...

This paper presents evidence for a causal effect of international migration on the functioning of democratic institutions in the sending country. It does so for the particular case of the Mexican democratization process, using data from municipal elections for the 2000–2002 electoral cycle....

This paper uses cross-country data from 1984 to 2008 to examine how institution influences the number of deaths caused by natural disasters. The major findings show that the number of deaths resulting from natural disasters is smaller in countries with less public sector corruption, and for OECD...

This paper provides a within-country analysis of the impact of corruption on economic growth using a panel of Italian regions from 1968 to 2011 through a robust measure of corruption. This measure is averaged over 5-year periods to reduce short-run fluctuations and to reduce probable delayed...

Optimal fiscal policy depends on the marginal benefits of public spending. In developing countries corrupt officials often embezzle funds, so optimal policy should reflect marginal corruption. We analyze marginal corruption in the context of a statutory wage increase in India's employment...

Against the background of a notoriously high macroeconomic instability and the need to raise tax revenues to meet the demands of public spending, this paper analyzes the tradeoff between growth and volatility of tax revenues in Latin America. We use a two-step Engle-Granger-type model to...

We examine whether democratic societies can escape poverty traps. Unrestricted agenda setting with simple majority rules fail to educate a society, because education-enhancing redistribution will not occur. We show that a combination of suitable constitutional rules overcomes this impossibility...