While reform of the Chinese public and external sectors has promoted growth, it has also led to increasing macroeconomic volatility. Such volatility has largely be due to China's de facto administrative and fiscal decentralisation and its de jure attempts at reasserting central control through...

The IMF has been leading efforts to develop and implement Codes of Monetary and Fiscal Transparency. Such Codes aim to increase disclosure of public sector information on the Internet-representing a type of "e-transparency." Do such codes and increased Internet-based public sector information...

"Technical" public sector reform programmes often ignore the politics and value judgements inherent in these programmes. One way of addressing these concerns has been the implementation of public sector ethics programmes. Yet, ethics programmes themselves have been treated as technical exercises...

The rise of accountability seems to unambiguously promote more responsible, effective and participatory public sector action. However, the benefits of accountability are less ambiguous than they appear. Activities aimed at increasing accountability generally proliferate as they gain importance -...

Anti-corruption activity focused on the judiciary in Africa represents one interesting example of the dialogue between international and national activity in foreign sponsored development projects in Africa. In this paper, we look at the multiple interactions between international legal and...

Donor sponsored anti-corruption programmes represent an increasingly large segment of international development assistance to Africa. While the ostensible objective of these programmes is to reduce African corruption, the generality of these programmes suggests other factors appear to motivate...

This article uses empirical evidence from Tanzania to show that bribes there are not "greasing" but instead encumber economic transactions. The evidence suggests that bribe payments promote contacts with service providers, result in lower satisfaction with public service delivery, and result in...

The World Bank sponsored anti-corruption programme in Bolivia seemed like the perfectly designed programme. It promoted participation, involved all of society's stakeholders, and focused on action-planning. Yet, like many other such initiatives, the promise did not live up to the potential - the...

Should international institutions promote international regulatory harmonisation? This paper will present arguments, looking at the UN Convention Against Corruption, noting that international institution regulation may play less of a harmonising role that it ostensibly appears to. Section I...

A shadow professoriate influences an increasing amount of development economics activity. Badly conceived hiring, pay, and promotion rules, as well as the money-seeking politics institutionalizing these rules, allow self-interested development economists to use its services and join its ranks....