Social Status and Corruption

We study the interaction between social and economic incentives in determining the level of corruption. Using social rewards as incentives for civil servants may help to reduce corruption. In our model, a decrease in corruption produces an externality that reduces the cost of hiring civil servants. In particular, it makes wage schemes which avert corruption (efficiency wages) cheaper. We show that the existence of this externality reduces the ?optimal? level of corruption in a society, the greater the power of social status, the lower the level of corruption.Fil: Galiani, Sebastian. Washington University in St. Louis; Estados UnidosFil: Weinschelbaum, Federico. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Renegotiation, Collective Action Clauses and Sovereign Debt Markets

Collective action clauses (CACs) are provisions specifying that a supermajority of bondholders can change the terms of a bond. We study how CACs determine governments’ fiscal incentives, sovereign bond prices and default probabilities in environments with and without contingent debt and IMF presence. We claim that CACs are likely to be an irrelevant dimension of debt contracts in current sovereign debt markets because of the variety of instruments utilized by sovereigns and the implicit IMF guarantee. Nonetheless, under a new international bankruptcy regime like that recently proposed by the IMF, CACs can increase significantly the cost of borrowing for sovereigns, contrary to what is suggested in previous empirical literatureSovereign debt; Collective action clauses; Renegotiation; Moral hazard; International bankruptcy court.

Renegotiation, Collective Action Clauses and Sovereign Debt Markets

Collective action clauses (CACs) are provisions specifying that a supermajority of bondholders can change the terms of a bond. We study how CACs determine governments' fiscal incentives, sovereign bond prices and default probabilities in environments with and without contingent debt and IMF presence. We claim that CACs are likely to be an irrelevant dimension of debt contracts in current sovereign debt markets because of the variety of instruments utilized by sovereigns and the implicit IMF guarantee. Nonetheless, under a new international bankruptcy regime like that recently proposed by the IMF, CACs can increase significantly the cost of borrowing for sovereigns, contrary to what is suggested in previous empirical literatureSovereign Debt, Collective Action Clauses, Renegotiation, Moral Hazard, International Bankrucpty Court

The Effect of Corruption on Bidding Behavior in First-Price Auctions

Most of the literature on auctions assumes that the auctioneer owns the object on sale. However most auctions are organized and run by an agent of the owner. This separation generates the possibility of corruption. We analyze the effect of a particular form of corruption on bidding behavior in a single-object, private-value auction with risk-neutral bidders. Bidders believe that, with a certain probability, the auctioneer has reached an agreement with one of the bidders by which, after receiving all bids, (i) she will reveal to that bidder all of her rivals' bids, and (ii) she will allow that bidder to change her original bid upwards or downwards. We study how an honest bidder would adjust her bidding behavior when facing this type of collusion between a dishonest rival and the auctioneer. In a first price auction, an honest bidder can become more or less aggressive than she would be without corruption, or her behavior can remain unchanged. We identify sufficient conditions for each of the three possibilities. We also examine the extent to which the most commonly used distributions satisfy each of the three conditionsauctions, corruption

Modeling Informality Formally: Households and Firms

Informality is widespread in most developing countries. In Latin America, 50 percent of salaried employees work informally. Three stylized facts characterize informality: 1) small firms tend to operate informally while large firms tend to operate formally; 2) unskilled workers tend to be informal while skilled ones have formal jobs; 3) Ceteris paribus, secondary workers are less likely to operate formally than primary workers. We develop a model that account for all these facts. In our model both heterogeneous firms and workers have preferences over the sector they operate and choose optimally whether to function formally or informally. There are two labor markets, one formal and the other informal, and both firms and workers act unconstrained in them. By contrast, a prominent feature of the pre-existing literature is the idea that worker’s decisions play no role in determining the equilibrium of the economy. Using our model, we show that an increase in the participation of secondary workers would tend to raise the level of informality in the economy. This effect partially accounts for the increases in informality seen in Latin America over the past two decades.

A note on the suboptimality of right-of-first-refusal clauses

We show that, under independent private values, no mechanism that contains a right-of-first-refusal clause can maximize the sum of the utilities of the seller and the right-holder.Auctions

A Note on Wealth as a Corruption-Controlling Device

In the standard moral hazard model, withholding of effort by the agent is not observable to the principal. We argue that this assumption has to be changed in applications that study corruption. The overwhelming majority of cases where corrupt politicians have been punished involve the detection of consumption levels that appear to be too high. The informativeness of an agent’s level of consumption depends on his initial level of wealth as conspicuous consumption of luxuries by wealthy agents leads to little updating of the principal’s belief about their honesty. This introduces a tendency to choose poor agents as they are easier to monitor. More generally, we show that, even if agents have similar preferences, there are contractual advantages to selecting particular types. We describe the basic problem of choosing agents and monitoring consumption, and discuss a number of features of the practical applications. We show that selecting rich politicians may not help fight corruption and that the political class will exhibit lower variance in consumption than the population. In settings were formal contracts matter, we show that monitoring consumption introduces a tendency towards low powered incentive schemes (and more generally low wages) and that the measure of “moral” costs that is often employed in the literature can be derived (not assumed).Choosing agents, monitoring consumption, low wages, moral costs

Choosing Agents and Monitoring Consumption: A Note on Wealth as a Corruption-Controlling Device

There are a large number of cases where corruption has been discovered investigating levels of consumption that appear to be hard to justify. Yet, in the standard moral hazard model withholding of effort by the agent is not observable to the principal. We argue that this assumption has to be revised in applications that study corruption. The informativeness of an agent's level of consumption depends on his legal income and initial level of wealth, as conspicuous consumption by wealthy agents leads to little updating of the principal's belief about their honesty. This introduces a tendency to prefer poor agents as they are easier to monitor. More generally, we describe the basic problem of choosing agents and monitoring consumption with the aim of reducing corruption, and discuss features of the practical applications. We show that when there is consumption monitoring and wealth is observed, the effect of higher wealth on equilibrium bribes is ambiguous (and that the political class will exhibit lower variance in consumption than the general population). In settings where formal contracts matter, we show that monitoring consumption introduces a tendency towards low powered incentives (and more generally low wages). We also discuss the role of ability, the tax system, and the way to derive a measure of the value of illegal funds for the agent.

Modeling Informality Formally: Households and Firms

Informality is widespread in most developing countries. In Latin America, 50% of salaried employees work informally. Three stylized facts characterize informality: (1) small firms tend to operate informally while large firms tend to operate formally; (2) unskilled workers tend to be informal while skilled ones have formal jobs; (3) ceteris paribus, secondary workers (a worker other than the household head) are less likely to operate formally than primary workers. We develop a model that accounts for all these facts. In our model, both heterogeneous firms and workers have preferences over the sector they operate and choose optimally whether to function formally or informally. There are two labor markets, one formal and the other informal, and both firms and workers act unconstrained in them. By contrast, a prominent feature of the preexisting literature is that workers' decisions play no role in determining the equilibrium of the economy. In our model, policies that reduce the supply of workers in the informal labor market at given wages will increase the level of formality in the economy. This has noteworthy implications for the design of social programs in developing countries. We also show that an increase in the participation of secondary workers would tend to raise the level of informality in the economy.Fil: Galiani, Sebastián. Washington University in St. Louis; Estados UnidosFil: Weinschelbaum, Federico. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

The Brother in Law Effect

Ordinarily labor market equilibrium implies that the marginal worker is indifferent to employment, and that the employer is indifferent between equally productive employees. When the marginal worker is indifferent to employment, employer preferences do not matter. If, however, the marginal worker strictly prefers to be employed, the employer can give favors, and may wish to do so even at some cost to efficient production. Not only may inefficient workers be employed, but the employer may also choose to employ too many workers. We refer to this as the brother-in law effect. When the brother-in-law effect is due to unionization, employment of brothers-inlaw leads to increased employment – under some circumstances leading even to over employment relative to the workforce that would be employed without unionization. If the employment effect is strong – because brothers-in-law are relatively good workers – nepotism improves efficiency. If the employment effect is weak – including in principalagent models where there are informational rents – nepotism is inefficient.