The Economics of Corruption and Bureaucratic Inefficiency in Weak States

This monograph surveys recent developments in the political economy literature addressing the incentive problems of political decision making, and helps to understand the causes of corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency in countries that lack a constitutional order. Using a principal-agent theoretical framework, the author shows how corruption and patronage may reduce political instability, thus enabling governments in weak states to provide public goods which would otherwise be missing, even though such an institutional arrangement is usually self-defeating in the long run. The theoretical results are used to offer a stylized interpretation of the political history of the Mexican state.

Autorentext

The Author: Luis G. González Morales studied Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, in México. From 1999 to 2002 he was enrolled in the doctoral program Allocation Theory, Economic Policy and Collective Decisions, jointly hosted by the Universität Dortmund and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, in Germany. Since August 2002, he is visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems in Jena.

Inhalt

Contents: Economics and the theory of the state - Political stability and corruption in weak states - Constitutional order and bureaucratic efficiency - Dynamic aspects of reelection incentives - A theory of Mexico's political history.