Corruption Perceptions vs. Corruption Reality

This paper examines the accuracy of beliefs about corruption, using data from Indonesian villages. Specifically, I compare villagers%u2019 stated beliefs about the likelihood of corruption in a road-building project in their village with a more objective measure of %u2018missing expenditures%u2019 in the project, which I construct by comparing the projects%u2019 official expenditure reports with an independent estimate of the prices and quantities of inputs used in construction. I find that villagers%u2019 beliefs do contain information about corruption in the road project, and that villagers are sophisticated enough to distinguish between corruption in the road project and other types of corruption in the village. The magnitude of their information, however, is small, in part because officials hide corruption where it is hardest for villagers to detect. This may limit the effectiveness of grass-roots monitoring of local officials. I also find evidence of systematic biases in corruption beliefs, particularly when examining the relationship between corruption and variables correlated with trust. For example, ethnically heterogeneous villages have higher perceived corruption levels but lower actual levels of missing expenditures. The findings illustrate the limitations of relying solely on corruption perceptions, whether in designing anti-corruption policies or in conducting empirical research on corruption.

Informal Taxation

Informal payments are a frequently overlooked source of local public finance in developing countries. We use microdata from ten countries to establish stylized facts on the magnitude, form, and distributional implications of this "informal taxation." Informal taxation is widespread, particularly in rural areas, with substantial in-kind labor payments. The wealthy pay more, but pay less in percentage terms, and informal taxes are more regressive than formal taxes. Failing to include informal taxation underestimates household tax burdens and revenue decentralization in developing countries. We propose a simple model of information and enforcement constraints that parsimoniously explains the patterns in the data.

The Simple Economics of Extortion: Evidence from Trucking in Aceh

This paper tests whether the behavior of corrupt officials is consistent with standard industrial organization theory. We designed a study in which surveyors accompanied truck drivers on 304 trips along their regular routes in two Indonesian provinces, during which we directly observed over 6,000 illegal payments to traffic police, military officers, and attendants at weigh stations. Using plausibly exogenous changes in the number of police and military checkpoints, we show that market structure affects the level of illegal payments, finding evidence consistent with double-marginalization and hold-up along a chain of vertical monopolies. Furthermore, we document that the illegal nature of these payments does not prevent corrupt officials from extracting additional revenue using complex pricing schemes, including third-degree price discrimination and a menu of two-part tariffs. Our findings illustrate the importance of considering the market structure for bribes when designing anti-corruption policy.

Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War

Assassinations are a persistent feature of the political landscape. Using a new data set of assassination attempts on all world leaders from 1875 to 2004, we exploit inherent randomness in the success or failure of assassination attempts to identify assassination's effects. We find that, on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy. We also find that assassinations affect the intensity of small-scale conflicts. The results document a contemporary source of institutional change, inform theories of conflict, and show that small sources of randomness can have a pronounced effect on history.

The Anatomy of Start-Stop Growth

This paper investigates the remarkable extremes of growth experiences within countries and examines the changes that occur when growth starts and stops. We find three main results. First, all but the very richest countries experience both growth miracles and failures over substantial periods. Second, growth accounting reveals that physical capital accumulation plays a negligible role in growth take-offs and a larger but still modest role in growth collapses. The implied role of productivity in these shifts is also directly reflected in employment reallocations and changes in trade. Third, growth accelerations and collapses are asymmetric phenomena. Collapses typically feature reduced manufacturing and investment amidst increasing price instability, whereas growth takeoffs are primarily associated with large and steady expansions in international trade. This asymmetry suggests that the roads into and out of rapid growth expansions may not be the same. The results stand in contrast to much growth theory and conventional wisdom: despite much talk of poverty traps, even very poor countries regularly grow rapidly, and the role of aggregate investment in growth accelerations is negligible.

Should Aid Reward Performance? Evidence from a Field Experiment on Health and Education in Indonesia

This paper reports an experiment in over 3,000 Indonesian villages designed to test the role of performance incentives in improving the efficacy of aid programs. Villages in a randomly-chosen one-third of subdistricts received a block grant to improve 12 maternal and child health and education indicators, with the size of the subsequent year’s block grant depending on performance relative to other villages in the subdistrict. Villages in remaining subdistricts were randomly assigned to either an otherwise identical block grant program with no financial link to performance, or to a pure control group. We find that the incentivized villages performed better on health than the non-incentivized villages, particularly in less developed areas, but found no impact of incentives on education. We find no evidence of negative spillovers from the incentives to untargeted outcomes, and no evidence that villagers manipulated scores. The relative performance design was crucial in ensuring that incentives did not result in a net transfer of funds toward richer areas. Incentives led to what appear to be more efficient spending of block grants, and led to an increase in labor from health providers, who are partially paid fee-for-service, but not teachers. On net, between 50-75% of the total impact of the block grant program on health indicators can be attributed to the performance incentives.

Justice George Sutherland and Economic Liberty: Constitutional Conservatism and the Problem of Factions

Most scholars have viewed Justice George Sutherland as a conservative jurist who opposed government regulation because of his adherence to laissez-faire economics and Social Darwinism, or because of his devotion to natural rights. In this Article, Professor Olken analyzes these widely held misperceptions of Justice Sutherland\u27s economic liberty jurisprudence, which was based not on socio-economic theory, but on historical experience and common law. Justice Sutherland, consistent with the judicial conservatism of the Lochner era, wanted to protect individual rights from the whims of political factions and changing democratic majorities. The Lochner era differentiation between government regulations enacted for the public welfare and those for the benefit of certain groups illuminates this underlying tenet of Justice Sutherland\u27s jurisprudence. Professor Olken also examines Justice Sutherland\u27s work prior to his years on the Court, his strict construction of constitutional limitations, his view of the judiciary\u27s role in protecting individual rights, and his commitment to equal operation of the law. The ultimate irony in Justice Sutherland\u27s jurisprudence is that his strong aversion to factions and his failure to understand changing industrial and social conditions, in some instances, actually reinforced economic inequalities

Analysis of soybean-proteins (Glycine max) by two-dimensional electrophoresis and MALDI-TOF

Food allergy is a growing problem in the world today, which makes it important to find out which proteins in food that causes allergic reactions. Soybeans are one of the most common food allergens in many countries and little is known about it allergenic properties. There are about 15 known soybean-proteins that have been shown to be allergenic. Most of these are seed proteins and the most common ones are Globulines called Glycinin and β-conglycinin. Other proteins known to be allergenic are Gly m Bd 28, soybean agglutinin (SBA), Kunitz trypsin inhibitor (TI), Gly m 4 and Gly m Bd30. The main aim of this study was to set up a two-dimensional (2-D) electrophoresis method for separation of proteins in soybean extract. The 2-D technique was used to identify soybean components and especially allergenic components in the soybean extract. The 2-D electrophoresis method was very useful for separation of proteins. First the proteins were separated during isoelectric focusing according to the proteins isoelectric point. In a second step they were separated in an electrophoresis according to their molecular weight. The gels were then stained with Coomassie brilliant blue (CBB) and proteins could be seen as blue spots on a clear background. To identify the proteins in the soybean extract known soybean components were run separately on 2-D electrophoresis and compared to the gel over the whole soybean extract. To further confirm the identity of allergic components in the soybean extract matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) was used. The soybean extract was also gel filtrated through a Sephadex gel column and collected in 20 different fractions. From these fractions some were chosen for 2-D electrophoresis, these were also compared to the previously gels over the extract. Results from 2-D electrophoresis showed that glycinin was a very common protein in the soybean extract. The Trypsin inhibitor was also relatively common. SBA, β-conglycinin and Gly m 4 gave rise to fewer spots. In the gel filtrated fractions several of the Glycinin and β-conglycinin were successfully separated. All proteins identified through 2-D electrophoresis were summarized on a gel with the whole soybean extract. To confirm the identity of some of the proteins MALDI-TOF was used. Several Glycinin and β-conglycinin spots could be confirmed and also three other proteins with no known allergenic properties. The 2-D electrophoresis method in combination with MALDI-TOF was shown to be a very useful combination for identification of proteins

The Business of Expression: Economic Liberty, Political Factions and the Forgotten First Amendment Legacy of Justice George Sutherland

In The Business of Expression: Economic Liberty, Political Factions And The Forgotten First Amendment Legacy of Justice George Sutherland, Samuel Olken traces the dichotomy that emerged in constitutional law in the aftermath of the Lochner era between economic liberty and freedom of expression. During the 1930s, while a deeply divided United States Supreme Court adopted a laissez faire approach to economic regulation, it viewed with great suspicion laws that restricted the manner and content of expression. During this period, Justice George Sutherland often clashed with the majority consistently insisting that state regulation of private economic rights bear a close and substantial relationship to public health, safety, morals, or welfare. Bringing Sutherland\u27s beliefs to the present, the authorfeels that constitutional issues raised by the recent must-carry controversy reflect many of the ambiguities raised by the Court in their handling of differential taxation of the press disputes during the 1980s and into the 1990s. The author believes similar questions about the relationship between economic liberty and freedom of expression are likely to recur in other contexts as the Court struggles to adapt traditional First Amendment analytical models to emerging forms of communications technology. From this perspective, the author argues that Sutherland\u27s recognition during the 1930s ofthe convergence ofeconomic liberty, politicalfactions, and expressive activity is highly relevant to modern constitutional inquiry. In the spirit of Sutherland\u27s views, the author proposes a new form of heightened scrutiny in cases involving differential treatment of the press that more precisely considers the economic and expressive interests at stake. Specifically, Olken argues that the Court should employ a nuanced version of heightened scrutiny that considers more explicitly the respective economic and expressive interests of the affected parties when the government regulates private entities engaged in the business of expressio