Recent empirical studies find that the direct effect of corruption on growth is statistically insignificant. However, there exists a discrepancy between these results and the intuition that corruption reduces over-all productivity, because total factor productivity also depends on the quality of...

This expository note provides a critical review of the burgeoning literature on social capital and highlights a number of conceptual and empirical issues. First, the concept of social capital remains largely elusive, with many different ideas attached to it. This elusiveness has serious...

This paper provides an extensive review of growth, inequality and poverty reduction in the East Asian miracle economies. This review suggests that the basic impetus for poverty reduction was robust economic growth, which was fostered by a conducive policy and institutional framework. This...

Corrupt bureaucrats manipulate rules and regulations to coerce the private agents to pay bribes. In such an environment the cost of dealing with the public sector is uncertain as the regulations are not observed as they are originally defined. Combined with weak enforcement and compliance,...