The Macroeconomics of Corruption

The Macroeconomics of Corruption
Author: Maksym Ivanyna
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2021-04-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030675572

This textbook examines corruption through a macroeconomic lens, exploring the relationship between corruption, fiscal policy, and political economy. It merges macroeconomic growth models with elements of political economic theory to address important applied topics such as income inequality within and across countries, growth slowdowns, and fiscal crises. Revised and updated to include new research findings and recent policy discussions, the second edition contains 15 new sections and 2 new chapters on topics such as public defaults, the wage elasticity of work and the interest elasticity of saving, and the economic and fiscal impact of the 2020 pandemic. Most of the basic ideas are illustrated using a two-period model of government investment that captures the future cost of policies that favor the present. The more subtle and advanced issues are illustrated and, in some cases, quantified, using the overlapping-generations model of economic growth. The models used to illustrate the mechanisms of economic growth are extended to incorporate politics and the behavior of public official. The text concludes with a thorough discussion of policy reforms designed to address the issues discussed in earlier chapters. Intended for students familiar with intermediate-level economics, the second edition contains a technical appendix, expanded end-of-chapter questions and problems, and a complete solutions manual. The second edition also offers updated resources for instructors, including sample syllabi and over 550 multiple choice questions. Offering a unified explanation for the causes and consequences of government failure, fiscal crisis, and needed policy reforms, this text is appropriate for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses in macroeconomics, political economy, and public policy.

The Measurement and Macro-Relevance of Corruption: A Big Data Approach

The Measurement and Macro-Relevance of Corruption: A Big Data Approach
Author: Sandile Hlatshwayo
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2018-08-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 148437309X

Corruption is macro-relevant for many countries, but is often hidden, making measurement of it—and its effects—inherently difficult. Existing indicators suffer from several weaknesses, including a lack of time variation due to the sticky nature of perception-based measures, reliance on a limited pool of experts, and an inability to distinguish between corruption and institutional capacity gaps. This paper attempts to address these limitations by leveraging news media coverage of corruption. We contribute to the literature by constructing the first big data, cross-country news flow indices of corruption (NIC) and anti-corruption (anti-NIC) by running country-specific search algorithms over more than 665 million international news articles. These indices correlate well with existing measures of corruption but offer additional richness in their time-series variation. Drawing on theory from the corporate finance and behavioral economics literature, we also test to what extent news about corruption and anti-corruption efforts affects economic agents’ assessments of corruption and, in turn, economic outcomes. We find that NIC shocks appear to negatively impact both financial (e.g., stock market returns and yield spreads) and real variables (e.g., growth), albeit with some country heterogeneity. On average, NIC shocks lower real per capita GDP growth by 3 percentage points over a two-year period, illustrating persistence in the effect of such shocks. Conversely, there is suggestive evidence that anti-NIC efforts appear to have a sustained positive macro impact only when paired with meaningful institutional strengthening, proxied by capacity development efforts.

Corruption and Reform

Corruption and Reform
Author: Edward L. Glaeser
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2007-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226299597

Despite recent corporate scandals, the United States is among the world’s least corrupt nations. But in the nineteenth century, the degree of fraud and corruption in America approached that of today’s most corrupt developing nations, as municipal governments and robber barons alike found new ways to steal from taxpayers and swindle investors. In Corruption and Reform, contributors explore this shadowy period of United States history in search of better methods to fight corruption worldwide today. Contributors to this volume address the measurement and consequences of fraud and corruption and the forces that ultimately led to their decline within the United States. They show that various approaches to reducing corruption have met with success, such as deregulation, particularly “free banking,” in the 1830s. In the 1930s, corruption was kept in check when new federal bureaucracies replaced local administrations in doling out relief. Another deterrent to corruption was the independent press, which kept a watchful eye over government and business. These and other facets of American history analyzed in this volume make it indispensable as background for anyone interested in corruption today.

Corruption and Government

Corruption and Government
Author: Susan Rose-Ackerman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 643
Release: 2016-03-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107081203

This new edition of a 1999 classic shows how institutionalized corruption can be fought through sophisticated political-economic reform.

Governance, Corruption, and Economic Performance

Governance, Corruption, and Economic Performance
Author: Mr.Sanjeev Gupta
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 580
Release: 2002-09-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781589061163

This volume presents 18 IMF research studies on the causes and consequences of corruption, as well as how it can most effectively be combated to improve governance, increase economic growth, and reduce poverty. The authors examine how civil service wages affect corruption, the impact of natural resource availability on corruption, the impact of corruption on a country’s income distribution and incidence of poverty, and the effect of corruption on government expenditures on health and education.

Corruption

Corruption
Author: Marco Arnone
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 659
Release: 2014-05-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 178100613X

Economic analysis is also the key to measuring the efficacy of current anti-corruption instruments, and in the light of this the book finds many existing legal counter-measures lacking. On the other hand, its assessment of new international instruments

Corruption, Development and Institutional Design

Corruption, Development and Institutional Design
Author: J. Kornai
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2009-02-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230242170

With the aim of providing a comprehensive analysis of institutions, and of the global economy more generally, this volume explores systems of institutions and the effect of corruption, developments in behavioural economics, the impact of immigration, and the links between democratic progress and economic growth.

Does Corruption Affect Income Inequality and Poverty?

Does Corruption Affect Income Inequality and Poverty?
Author: Mr.Sanjeev Gupta
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 42
Release: 1998-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1451849842

This paper demonstrates that high and rising corruption increases income inequality and poverty by reducing economic growth, the progressivity of the tax system, the level and effectiveness of social spending, and the formation of human capital, and by perpetuating an unequal distribution of asset ownership and unequal access to education. These findings hold for countries with different growth experiences, at different stages of development, and using various indices of corruption. An important implication of these results is that policies that reduce corruption will also lower income inequality and poverty.