2012/06/16 by Benjamin Olken, Rohini Pande · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Computer Science · #Corruption and Economic Development #Economic Growth and Development #Language change #Economic rent #Incentive #Economics #Developing country #Public economics #Rent-seeking #Development economics #Political science #Microeconomics #Economic growth #Politics
paper · doi:10.1146/annurev-economics-080511-110917
openalex publication_date 2012/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
Recent years have seen a remarkable expansion in economists' ability to measure corruption. This in turn has led to a new generation of well-identified, microeconomic studies. We review the evidence on corruption in developing countries in light of these recent advances, focusing on three questions: how much corruption is there, what are the efficiency consequences of corruption, and what determines the level of corruption? We find robust evidence that corruption responds to standard economic incentive theory but also that the effects of anticorruption policies often attenuate as officials find alternate strategies to pursue rents.