IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Login to save this paper or follow this series

One Size Fits All? Decentralization, Corruption, and the Monitoring of Bureaucrats

Author Info

  • Christian Lessmann
  • Gunther Markwardt

Abstract

The majority of theoretical and empirical studies on the relationship between decentralization and corruption argues that the devolution of power might be a feasible instrument to keep corruption at bay. We argue that this result crucially depends on the effectiveness of monitoring bureaucrat’s behavior. The benefits of interjurisdictional competition only occur if there is a supervisory body such as a free press, which is often lacking in less-developed countries. Using cross-country data, we analyze the relationship between decentralization and corruption taking different degrees of the freedom of the press into account. Our main finding is that decentralization counteracts corruption in countries with high degrees of press freedom, whereas countries without effective monitoring suffer from decentralization. Our policy implication is that a free press is a necessary pre-condition for successful decentralization programs.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.

File URL: http://www.cesifo-group.de/portal/page/portal/DocBase_Content/WP/WP-CESifo_Working_Papers/wp-cesifo-2009/wp-cesifo-2009-05/cesifo1_wp2662.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number 2662.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2662
Contact details of provider: Postal: Poschingerstrasse 5, 81679 Munich
Phone: +49 (89) 9224-0
Fax: +49 (89) 985369
Web page: http://www.cesifo.de
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords: decentralization; corruption; freedom of press;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
  • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
  • O23 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development

References listed on IDEAS
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.:

as in new window
  1. Graf Lambsdorff, Johann, 2005. "Determining trends for perceived levels of corruption," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-38-05, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
  2. JOhn Bennett & Saul Estrin, 2006. "Corruption and Bureaucratic Structure in a Developing Economy," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 825, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
  3. Freille, Sebastian & Haque, Mohammad Emranul & Kneller, Richard Anthony, 2007. "Federalism, decentralisation and corruption," MPRA Paper 27535, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. Huther, Jeff & Shah, Anwar, 1998. "Applying a simple measure of good governance to the debate on fiscal decentralization," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1894, The World Bank.
  5. Enikolopov, Ruben & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2003. "Decentralization and Political Institutions," CEPR Discussion Papers 3857, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  6. Oguzhan Dincer & Christopher Ellis & Glen Waddell, 2010. "Corruption, decentralization and yardstick competition," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 269-294, June.
  7. Lederman, Daniel & Loayza, Norman & Reis Soares, Rodrigo, 2001. "Accountability and corruption : political institutions matter," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2708, The World Bank.
  8. Benjamin A. Olken & Patrick Barron, 2007. "The Simple Economics of Extortion: Evidence from Trucking in Aceh," NBER Working Papers 13145, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
  10. Pranab Bardhan, 2002. "Decentralization of Governance and Development," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 185-205, Fall.
  11. Guido Tabellini, 2000. "Constitutional Determinants of Government Spending," CESifo Working Paper Series 265, CESifo Group Munich.
  12. Rodden, Jonathan, 2003. "Reviving Leviathan: Fiscal Federalism and the Growth of Government," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(04), pages 695-729, September.
  13. Fisman, Raymond & Gatti, Roberta, 2000. "Decentralization and corruption - evidence across countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2290, The World Bank.
  14. Sebastian G. Kessing & Kai A. Konrad & Christos Kotsogiannis, 2007. "Foreign direct investment and the dark side of decentralization," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 22, pages 5-70, 01.
  15. Brunetti, Aymo & Weder, Beatrice, 2003. "A free press is bad news for corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1801-1824, August.
  16. Dan Stegarescu, 2005. "Public sector decentralisation: measurement concepts and recent international trends," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 26(3), pages 301-333, September.
  17. Rafael LaPorta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, . "The Quality of Government," Working Paper 19452, Harvard University OpenScholar.
  18. Treisman, Daniel, 2000. "The causes of corruption: a cross-national study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 399-457, June.
  19. Pranab Bardhan & Dilip Mookherjee, 2006. "Decentralisation and Accountability in Infrastructure Delivery in Developing Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(508), pages 101-127, 01.
  20. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1995. "Institutions And Economic Performance: Cross-Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Measures," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 207-227, November.
  21. Freille, Sebastian & Haque, M. Emranul & Kneller, Richard, 2007. "A contribution to the empirics of press freedom and corruption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 838-862, December.
  22. Chowdhury, Shyamal K., 2004. "The effect of democracy and press freedom on corruption: an empirical test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 93-101, October.
  23. Fan, C. Simon & Lin, Chen & Treisman, Daniel, 2009. "Political decentralization and corruption: Evidence from around the world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 14-34, February.
  24. Gary S. Becker, 1968. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76, pages 169.
  25. Mauro, Paolo, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712, August.
  26. Olivier Blanchard & Andrei Shleifer, 2001. "Federalism With and Without Political Centralization: China Versus Russia," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 48(4), pages 8.
  27. Fisman, Raymond & Gatti, Roberta, 2002. " Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. Federal Transfer Programs," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(1-2), pages 25-35, October.
  28. Witold J. Henisz, 2002. "The institutional environment for infrastructure investment," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 355-389.
  29. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416.
  30. G. Gulsun Arikan, 2004. "Fiscal Decentralization: A Remedy for Corruption?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 175-195, 03.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2662. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Julio Saavedra)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.