Posted by Francois Michel
If one wanted to summarize briefly how research on corruption has evolved in recent years, one could say that it has made progress in four different areas:
The search for determinants of corruption and its transmission mechanism to growth and the exploration of linkages between corruption and other economic—GDP per capita, capital flows, aid, income distribution, inflation, etc.—or political variables. This is often achieved through panel data analyses;- The improvement of transparency indexes—see Daniel Kaufmann and Aart Kraay’s recent article on "Governance Indicators: Where Are We, Where Should We Be Going?";
- Efforts to leverage insights from the corruption literature into sectoral, country-specific reform plans, and that have formed the core of the World Bank’s strategy in recent years. As the Bank’s recent flagship publication on corruption makes clear, public financial management reform are instrumental in tackling corruption;
- New microeconomic models explaining how corruption can originate in auctions of procurement contracts—e.g. on allowing ex-post collusion opportunities between the bureaucrat and one bidder.
