High rates of absence of teachers from their posts is a serious obstacle to delivery of education in many developing countries, but hard evidence on the problem has been scarce. This study, carried out as part of a new multi-country survey project in...

For poor people at village level, petty corruption involving a payment of as little as $10 for a free medical service can have devastating effects on their lives. What makes the situation even worse is that most of the people who are faced with...

Serbia is witnessing a deep crisis of the legitimacy of the system and its institutions. Corruption tends to infiltrate economic life, governments, political systems and institutional structures in these systems. The results of a recent CPA survey...

This article examines some factors that may determine the different outcomes of decentralization and, in particular, factors that are important when reforms manage to improve democratic and governance performance in spite of a hostile or harsh...

Government intervention to correct market failures is often accompanied by government failures and corruption. This is no more evident than in social sectors that are characterised by significant market failures and government intervention. However...

The key to reduced poverty is an integrated approach to development, addressing quality growth, environment, education, health and governance. This paper argues that government, as the key determinant of a county's domestic and international...

In the early 1990s, U.S. Attorney General, Janet Reno, made health care fraud a priority in the U.S. department of Justice. Thereafter in 1997, she broadened the Department's initiative to encompass all areas of fraud prevention. As a result of these...

This report was prepared by the World Bank (Warsaw Office) in response to a request from the Government of Poland to help identify the areas in which the most serious corruption problems are found and those in which measures to reduce corruption are...

Data that can be used to inform policy decisions are typically scarce in low-income countries, where standard policy prescriptions are less likely to apply. But if strategically designed, a survey can help induce policy change by pointing directly to...

Studies of the consequences of corruption have mainly focused on economic efficiency. This paper illustrates that corruption can also have distributional consequences. Corruption increases income inequality and poverty through lower economic growth...