The choice between market failures and corruption

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Acemoglu, D; Verdier, T
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Universite PSL; Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.90.1.194
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 194-211
• 关键词: LAW

摘要

Because government intervention transfers resources from one party to another, it creates room for corruption. As corruption often undermines the purpose of the intervention, governments Mill try to prevent it. They may create rents for bureaucrats, induce a misallocation of resources, and increase the size of the bureaucracy. Since preventing all corruption is excessively costly, second-best intervention may involve a certain fraction of bureaucrats accepting bribes. When corruption is harder to prevent, there may be both more bureaucrats and higher public-sector wages. Also, the optimal degree of government intervention may be nonmonotonic in the level of income. (JEL D23, H40).