Corruption and development: a review of issues

While corruption is an ancient problem, it has had variegated incidence at different times in different places, with varying degrees to damaging consequences. While the tenacity with which it tends to persist in some cases easily leads to despair and resignation on the part of those who are concerned about it, there can be and have been ways in which a whole range of policy measures can make a significant dent. In this article, Bardhan starts with a discussion of some of the alternative denotations of the problem of corruption. He then considers the ways in which the damaging consequences of corruption operate in the economy, while not ignoring its possible redeeming features in some cases. He pursues the question of why corruption is perceptibly so different in different societies. He finally examines the feasible policy issues that arise. His approach is primarily analytical and speculative, given the inherent difficulties of collecting (and hence the non-existence of) good empirical data on the subject of corruption. He refers, in the appendix, to some subjective ordinal ranking of countries in terms of corruption that are available in the international media, for whatever they are worth.