Governments play a central role in facilitating economic development. Yet while economists
have long emphasized the importance of government quality, historically they have paid less …

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 …

The winners of the Nobel Prize show how economics, when done right, can help us solve
the thorniest social and political problems of our day. Figuring out how to deal with today's …

We examine a new dataset of public procurement laws, practice, and outcomes in 187
countries. We measure regulation as restrictions on the discretion of the procuring entities …

This paper examines the extent to which government audits of public resources can reduce
corruption by enhancing political and judiciary accountability. We do so in the context of …

We study how the management practices bureaucrats operate under correlate with the
quantity of public services delivered, using data from the Nigerian Civil Service. We have …

This paper presents two propositions about corruption. First, the structure of government
institutions and of the political process are very important determinants of the level of …

Fiscal rules are laws aimed at reducing the incentive to accumulate debt, and many
countries adopt them to discipline local governments. Yet, their effectiveness is disputed …

We show that political institutions affect corruption levels. We use audit reports in Brazil to
construct new measures of political corruption in local governments and test whether …

ABSTRACT In the $793 billion Paycheck Protection Program, we examine metrics related to
potential misreporting including nonregistered businesses, multiple businesses at …