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Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives, and the Resource Curse

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Author Info
Georgy Egorov () (Harvard University)
Sergei Guriev () (New Economic School/CEFIR and CEPR)
Konstantin Sonin () (New Economic School/CEFIR and CEPR)

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Abstract

How can a non-democratic ruler provide proper incentives for state bureaucracy? In the absense of competitive elections and separation of powers, the ruler has to gather information either from a centralized agency such as a secret service or a decentralized source such as media. The danger of using a secret service is that it can collude with bureaucrats; overcoming collusion is costly. Free media aggregate information and thus constrain bureaucrats, but might also help citizens to coordinate on actions against the incumbent. We endogenize the ruler’s choice in a dynamic model to argue that free media are less likely to emerge in resource-rich economies where the ruler is less interested in providing incentives to his subordinates. We show that this prediction is consistent with both cross-section and panel data.

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Paper provided by Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR) in its series Working Papers with number w0063.

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Length: 39 pages
Date of creation: Feb 2006
Date of revision: Jun 2006
Handle: RePEc:cfr:cefirw:w0063

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Related research
Keywords: media freedom; non-democratic politics; bureaucracy; resource curse;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
P16 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Political Economy of Capitalism
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Antonio Cabrales & Esther Hauk, 2009. "Democracy and the curse of natural resources," Working Papers 2009-07, FEDEA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Dutta, Nabamita & Roy, Sanjukta, 2008. "The Role of Foreign Direct Investment on Press Freedom," MPRA Paper 10185, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Jul 2008. [Downloadable!]
  3. Besley, Timothy J. & Kudamatsu, Masayuki, 2007. "Making Autocracy Work," CEPR Discussion Papers 6371, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2009. "Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia," Working Papers w0113, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Randolph Luca Bruno, 2006. "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Rule of Law," LEM Papers Series 2006/16, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. [Downloadable!]
  6. Evgeny Yakovlev & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2007. "Deregulation of Business," Working Papers w0097, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin, 2008. "Government Control of the Media," Working Papers w0126, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR). [Downloadable!]
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