Audit risk and rent extraction: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Brazil

We report results from a randomized policy experiment designed to test whether increasedaudit risk deters rent extraction in local public procurement and service delivery in Brazil. Ourestimates suggest that temporarily increasing annual audit risk by about 20 percentage pointsreduced the proportion of irregular local procurement processes by about 17 percentage points.This reduction was driven entirely by irregularities involving mismanagement or corruption. Incontrast, we find no evidence that increased audit risk affected the quality of publicly providedpreventive and primary health care services -measured based on user satisfaction surveys- orcompliance with national regulations of the conditional cash transfer program "Bolsa Fam��lia".

Judicial presence and rent extraction

We estimate the effect of state judiciary presence on rent extraction in Brazilian local governments.We measure rents as irregularities related to waste or corruption uncovered by auditors.Our unique dataset at the level of individual inspections allows us to separately examine extensiveand intensive margins of rent extraction. The identification strategy is based on an institutionalrule of state judiciary branches according to which prosecutors and judges tend to be assigned tothe most populous among contiguous counties forming a judiciary district. Our research designexploits this rule by comparing counties that are largest in their district to counties with identicalpopulation size from other districts in the same state, where they are not the most populous. IVestimates suggest that state judiciary presence reduces the share of inspections with irregularitiesrelated to waste or corruption by about 10 percent or 0.3 standard deviations. In contrast, we findno effect on the intensive margin of rent extraction. Finally, our estimates suggest that judicialpresence reduces rent extraction only for first-term mayors.

Financing local development: Quasi-experimental evidence from municipalities in Brazil, 1980-1991

This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of additional unrestrictedgrant financing on local public spending, public service provision, schooling, literacy, andincome at the community (municipio) level in Brazil. Additional transfers increased local publicspending per capita by about 20% with no evidence of crowding out own revenue or otherrevenue sources. The additional local spending increased schooling per capita by about 7% andliteracy rates by about 4 percentage points. The implied marginal cost of schooling -accountingfor corruption and other leakages- amounts to about US$ 126, which turns out to be similar tothe average cost of schooling in Brazil in the early 1980s. In line with the effect on human capital,the poverty rate was reduced by about 4 percentage points, while income per capita gains werepositive but not statistically significant. Results also suggest that additional public spending hadstronger effects on schooling and literacy in less developed parts of Brazil, while poverty reductionwas evenly spread across the country.

Addressing the natural resource curse: An illustration from Nigeria

Some natural resources oil and minerals in particular exert a negative andnonlinear impact on growth via their deleterious impact on institutionalquality. We show this result to be very robust. The Nigerian experienceprovides telling confirmation of this aspect of natural resources. Wasteand corruption from oil rather than Dutch disease has been responsible forits poor long run economic performance. We propose a solution for addressingthis resource curse which involves directly distributing the oil revenuesto the public. Even with all the difficulties of corruption and inefficiencythat will no doubt plague its actual implementation, our proposal will, atthe least, be vastly superior to the status quo. At best, however, it couldfundamentally improve the quality of public institutions and, as a result,transform economics and politics in Nigeria.

Aprendiendo de los caciques

Esta ponencia versa sobre la dificultad de investigar un tema tan escurridizo y oculto como son los sistemas pol��ticos informales, las v��as que los caciques emplean para suplantar al (imaginado) Estado democr��tico de Derecho y los medios con los que aglutinan a sus clientelas (pan, palo y s��mbolos). De todo ello, las conclusiones que se pueden extraer transitan entre dos planos: en primer lugar, desde la metodolog��a, mi objetivo es demostrar que el antrop��logo es el investigador social que est�� en mejor disposici��n de abordar un objeto de estudio como el caciquismo, gracias sobre todo al m��todo etnol��gico. Siguiendo a Knight, ello requiere de doscompetencias profesionales de corte geertziano: la capacidad de inmersi��n y la descripci��n densa (Knight y Pansters, 2005). Cierta dosis de fortuna y un punto de arrojo tambi��n deben entrar en la ecuaci��n. Adem��s, un breve repaso por las aproximaciones te��ricas m��s destacadas (desde la ciencia pol��tica, la econom��a pol��tica, la historia, la antropolog��a, etc.) servir��n para contextualizar los estudios similares. De esta manera, se va a realizar una revisi��n cr��tica y abierta a la posici��n te��rica que sostiene la ausencia de Estado y a la del concepto de intermediaci��n, apuntando hacia la integraci��n y la continuidad de l��gicas, discursos y pr��cticas entre los diversos actores pol��ticos, tanto locales como de fuera de las comunidades.

La corrupci��n y sus ra��ces : El caso de Filipinas

La corrupci��n tiene ra��ces de tipo cultural, econ��mico y pol��tico y su identificaci��n en cada pa��s es indispensable para luchar contra ella. Se han estudiado las principales causas descritas en la bibliograf��a y para cada una de ellas se han obtenido indicadores y se han clasificado los diferentes pa��ses del mundo. Se han identificado los factores en que destaca Filipinas, una excolonia espa��ola y estadounidense, y se han establecido sus ra��ces coloniales.

The Conservativeness of the Central Bank when Institutional Quality is Poor

We propose an extension of Alesina and Tabellini 's model (1987) to include corruption, which is understood as the presence of weak institutions collecting revenue through formal tax channels. This paper analyses how conservative should an independent central bank be when the institutional quality is poor. When there are no political distortions, we show that the central bank has to be more conservative than the government, except with complete corruption. In this particular case, the central bank should be as conservative as the government. Further, we obtain that the relationship between the optimal relative degree of conservativeness of the central bank and the degree of corruption is affected by supply shocks. Concretely, when these shocks are not important, the central bank should be less conservative if the degree of corruption increases. However, this result may not hold when the shocks are relevant. JEL classi fication: D6, D73, E52, E58, E62, E63. Keywords: Central Bank Conservativeness; Corruption; Fiscal Policy; Monetary Policy; Seigniorage.

Corrupci��, c��stig i evoluci��

��s molt probable que les persones insolid��ries, com les implicades en corrupci��, vegin la resta de persones com mers instruments per satisfer la seva cobd��cia

El delito de corrupci��n privada: bien jur��dico, estructura t��pica e intervinientes

[spa] A trav��s de la LO 5/2010 el legislador espa��ol introdujo en el CP el art. 286 bis, creando un nuevo delito de corrupci��n privada. Seg��n el Pre��mbulo a la LO 5/2010:"La idea fuerza en este ��mbito es que la garant��a de una competencia justa y honesta pasa por la represi��n de los actos encaminados a corromper a los administradores de entidades privadas de forma similar a lo que se hace a trav��s del delito de cohecho". En este trabajo se aborda la cuesti��n del bien jur��dico protegido, examinando la postura defendida por la doctrina mayoritaria, partidaria de la tesis de que estamos ante un delito de peligro abstracto, y se propone un planteamiento distinto: entender que se trata de un delito de peligro concreto y no abstracto. Asimismo, se realiza un estudio de la estructura t��pica del nuevo delito y se analizan algunos de los problemas interpretativos que plantea la corrupci��n entre particulares.

ICA Cleaning procedure for EEG signals analysis: application to Alzheimer's disease detection

To develop systems in order to detect Alzheimer���s disease we want to use EEG signals. Available database is raw, so the first step must be to clean signals properly. We propose a new way of ICA cleaning on a database recorded from patients with Alzheimer's disease (mildAD, early stage). Two researchers visually inspected all the signals (EEG channels), and each recording's least corrupted (artefact-clean) continuous 20 sec interval were chosen for the analysis. Each trial was then decomposed using ICA. Sources were ordered using a kurtosis measure, and the researchers cleared up to seven sources per trial corresponding to artefacts (eye movements, EMG corruption, EKG, etc), using three criteria: (i) Isolated source on the scalp (only a few electrodes contribute to the source), (ii) Abnormal wave shape (drifts, eye blinks, sharp waves, etc.), (iii) Source of abnormally high amplitude ( ���100 ���V). We then evaluated the outcome of this cleaning by means of the classification of patients using multilayer perceptron neural networks. Results are very satisfactory and performance is increased from 50.9% to 73.1% correctly classified data using ICA cleaning procedure.

��Crisis de la cultura? = Crisis of the culture?

Culture has several meanings: civilization, creation, knowledge, life��� We analyze how each one suffers the so-called crisis of culture. Civilization lives the crisis as ��liquidity��, according to Bauman���s diagnosis, with significant negative impact on education. The creation and enjoyment of cultural products, such as museums, suffer its crisis as fragility resulting from the civilization crisis, notably in the form of consumerist banality or pure entertainment. Culture as knowledge and as life is analyzed under the joint notion ��humanistic culture��. This, which in turn is creation, knowledge and life has its specific corruption in the elitist knowledge, merely theoretical. The hallmark of genuine humanism contains an essential component, the dimension of ethical and political commitment. The crisis in the humanistic studies, noted by Nussbaum, threats the values of humanistic culture; in particular is a political risk, because democracy is a system that needs to sustain and improve the values of humanistic culture. In the background, and beyond the differences between the cultural meanings, there is a unique cultural crisis, a crisis of ethics and politics at a time

Rescatando a Baiter: a prop��sito de la origo de Marco Celio Rufo (CIC. CAEL. 5)

El objetivo del texto es recuperar la intuici��n de Johan Georg Baiter (1801-��������1877) que propuso Tusculum (Lacio, Italia) como patria de origen de Marco Celio Rufo enmendando una corruptela en la edici��n orelliana del Pro Caelio ciceroniano. Esta conjetura, desestimada en todas las ediciones posteriores del texto, ha sido recientemente confirmada gracias al hallazgo de un ep��grafe que documenta por vez primera en la ciudad lacial un magistrado M. Caelius de ��poca tardorepublicana.