This paper explores how the relationship between bureaucratic complexity and corruption affects the performance in utilities. We observe considerable variation in the performance of the utilities across countries, even across countries which appear to be relatively similar. Our hypothesis is that corruption plays an important role in explaining this observed difference in performance. In particular, corruption coupled with a complex regulatory structure can have negative effects on performance. The analysis points at the importance of considering the institutional framework and institutional quality when introducing new bureaucratic procedures, as the same set of policy advice will work differently in different countries. We measure bureaucratic complexity by the number of procedures needed for starting a business from the Doing Business Database provided by the World Bank.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 17 (2009) Issue (Month): 2 (June) Pages: 176-184 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF