The main objective of this study is to explore the realationship between a country's overall economic policy environment and the performance of investment projects in the social sectors. The authors focus on the impact of economy-wide policies including a range of fiscal, monetary, exchange...

If bureaucratic burden and delay are exogenous, a firm may find bribes a helpful way to cut through red tape. According to the"efficient grease"hypothesis, corruption can improve economic efficiency, and,fighting bribery can be counterproductive. This need not be the case. In a general...

This paper develops a proxy measure of the inequality of influence on the basis of survey evidence from 2002 Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) conducted among 6,500 firms in 27 transition countries. We refer to the resulting inequality as crony bias in the political...

Based on the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) of firms in transition countries, which unbundles corruption to measure different types of corrupt transactions and provide detailed information on the characteristics and performance of firms, we find that: i)...

Recent studies have focussed on the characteristics and policies of the state to explain the extent and causes of corruption, with little attention paid to the role played by firms. Consequently, the links between corporate governance and national governance have been unexplored. This paper...