Tina Søreide

This report provides an overview of arguments explaining the risk of corruption. Corrupt acts are subject to decision making authority and assets available for grabbing. These assets can be stolen, created by artificial shortage, or become available as the result of a market failure. Assets that are especially exposed to corruption include profits from the private sector, revenues from the export of natural resources, aid and loans, and the proceeds of crime. Whether or not opportunities for corruption are exploited depends on the individuals involved, the institution or society they are part of, and the law enforcement circumstances. Corruption usually persists in situations in which players are aware of the facts but nonetheless condone the practice. Absence of reaction can result from information asymmetries (in which the people who are supposed to act are not aware of the need to act), coordination failure, patronage-determined loyalty, and incentive problems at the political level. This review of results and insights from different parts of the scholarly literature on corruption focuses on areas where research can guide anticorruption policy. The report also describes a number of corruption-related challenges in need of more attention from researchers.

A Brief Review

Drivers of Corruption

Criminal law efficiency is a concept often referred to but seldom defined. Clarity, the author argues, is necessary for finding practical solutions to fundamental challenges in this area of law, especially with the criminal justice system itself at risk. Tina Søreide offers views in contrast to mainstream ideas on optimal criminal law responses to corruption, with emphasis on the fundamental role of the criminal justice system in the fight against corruption, and the effect this can have on other mechanisms in society. Her analysis explains the concept of criminal law efficiency through economic approaches and why many criminal law responses to corruption are at risk of becoming ‘façade strategies’ that may, in fact facilitate corruption. Corruption and Criminal Justice offers insights into the obstacles that policymakers and government advisors cannot ignore. It serves as an invaluable resource for advanced students and academics interested in law, economics, and large corporations.

Bridging Economic and Legal Perspectives

Corruption and Criminal Justice

Susan Rose-Ackerman

ÔVolume Two of the International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption presents a comprehensive, detailed, and in-depth analysis of corruption as well as its economic and policy implications. . . It will be a valuable resource not only for experts and students of corruption studies, but also for public officials, NGO employees, and scholars of economic and political development throughout the world.Õ Ð Ararat L. Osipian, Journal of Economic Issues A companion volume to the International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption published in 2006, the specially commissioned papers in Volume Two present some of the best policy-oriented research in the field. They stress the institutional roots of corruption and include new research on topics ranging from corruption in regulation and procurement to vote buying and private firm payoffs. Understanding the consequences of corrupt transactions requires one to know what is being bought with a bribe and how the behavior of public and private actors has been affected. The contributors therefore emphasize how the economic analysis of corruption must take account of the broader context within which bribery and self-dealing operate. Several chapters offer new approaches to empirical research on corruption that range from individual-level data to the macro-economy. Chapters with an explicit policy focus deal with the efficacy of anti-corruption agencies, multi-stakeholder initiatives, red flag warning systems and international conventions. This cutting-edge work will be an unmatched resource for scholars and students of corruption, professionals in international aid and finance organizations, and scholars and professionals with more general interests in economic and political development.

International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption

Aled Williams

The book's sixteen case studies explore why certain practices constitute forms of grabbing, what implications they have for the achievement of development goals, and how policy options should take the characteristics of grabbing into account.

Tina Søreide

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