In this chapter, Reinikka demonstrates that increasing public access to information has reduced inefficiency and corruption in Uganda. The survey from which her conclusions are drawn shows that budget allocations matter little when institutions are...

Why is corruption - defined here as the misuse of public office for private gain - perceived to be more widespread in some countries than others? Different theories associate cross-national variation in the extent of corruption with particular...

Corruption, particularly political or "grand corruption", distorts the entire decision-making process connected with public investment projects. The degree of distorsions is higher with weaker auditing institutions. The evidence presented shows that...

Corruption ranks, together with effective democratic representation, as the most important problem facing local governments. The challenge facing local governments is to develop innovative ways of building effective, accountable, and transparent...

The movement toward decentralization is gathering momentum. In this context, the important costs of corruption are being explicitly recognised, as is the urgent need to prevent corruption, raise city revenues, improve service delivery, stimulate...

Building strong institutions is a central challenge of development and is key to controlling corruption. Among public institutions, the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) play a critical role, as they help promote sound financial management and thus...

Corruption is problematic when policies encourage it and institutional controls are weak. Diagnosing corruption, and understanding its causes and consequences, allows countries to overcome their policy and institutional weaknesses and implement...

In this article, the author surveys the World Bank's efforts in combating the myth surrounding corruption, as well as the Bank's work in creating diagnostic tools, disseminating survey results, and implementing effective anti-corruption strategies...

The 1999 Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) assesses in detail the various dimensions of governance from the perspective of about 3000 firms in 20 countries. After introducing the survey framework and measurement approach...