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Benson, Bruce L.; McChesney, Fred S. --- "Corruption" [2004] ELECD 112; in Colombatto, Enrico (ed), "The Elgar Companion to the Economics of Property Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004)

Book Title: The Elgar Companion to the Economics of Property Rights

Editor(s): Colombatto, Enrico

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781840649949

Section: Chapter 15

Section Title: Corruption

Author(s): Benson, Bruce L.; McChesney, Fred S.

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

15 Corruption
Bruce L. Benson and Fred S. McChesney*


I won't tell anybody else
I'll keep it to myself
So c'mon and steal away.
Please, steal away.
(Jimmy Hughes, `Steal Away'1)

Introduction
Corruption is ubiquitous, not just in the world but also in the literature of law
and social science. `The literature on corruption is both vast and diverse'
(Bowles 2000, p. 462). Very little of that literature, however, views corrup-
tion in property rights terms. Yet, it is submitted here, the problems of
corruption are essentially those related to property rights. It follows that
desirable solutions to corruption problems must start by recognizing the
property rights nature of the phenomenon.
Broadly defined, corruption is not limited to the public sector. For exam-
ple, an employee of XYZ, Inc. may take a kick-back from Firm A in exchange
for the employee's awarding a contract from XYZ to A rather than to Firm B,
a lower bidder. Private sector corruption, however, is a species of agency cost
more generally, and thus raises issues beyond the scope of this chapter. The
subject here is corruption in the public sector.
A summary such as this can only outline the principal modes of analysis to
which corruption has been and should be subjected. Some more minor ana-
lytic strains must perforce be shortchanged. The works referenced below
contain many citations to other work not discussed here. Fiorentini and
Zamagni (1999) compile a good bit of the economic scholarship ( ...