Effects of the Institutional Design of the Civil Service: Evidence from Corruption

ABSTRACT

This research tests the direct effects of civil service structure on perceptions of corruption. Numerous studies suggest a relationship between civil service structure and corruption, but few test this link. It is hypothesized that corruption depends on the presence or absence of civil service policies, including job duties, tenure and security provisions, discipline policy, and rules on rewards and bargaining rights; the impact of government wages, per capita GDP, and democratization on corruption is also assessed. These hypotheses are tested using World Bank data for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and central and eastern European countries. No statistically significant relationships between civil service structure and corruption are found; however, occasional evidence that corruption is higher in countries with higher total government wage bills was obtained. Results additionally indicate that corruption is lower in countries with higher GDP. While the conclusions presented here are largely exploratory, there is a distinct lack of evidence indicating a relationship between civil service systems and public perceptions of corruption.     

More Than Meets the Market? Landlord Agency in the Illinois Housing Choice Voucher Program

The federal Housing Choice Voucher Program currently serves as one of the nation's predominant strategies for providing affordable rental housing for low-income households. The program is designed around two goals: first, to uphold the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's mission to provide safe, decent, and affordable housing; and second, to facilitate household residential location choices, with the idea that such choices can leverage other types of nonhousing opportunities for assisted households. While scholarly research has described a range of positive and negative household outcomes associated with the voucher subsidy, less is known about how those outcomes are produced on the ground. This research describes findings from 72 in-depth interviews with Illinois landlords and other voucher program stakeholders regarding their experiences with the program, with the goal of linking landlord practices to tenant outcomes. Findings of this research underscore the substantial influence that landlords have on assisted-household residential location choice and tenure, and show the potential for voucher program design to more actively engage with landlords as providers of supports that extend beyond the housing unit.     

Collaborative Behavior and the Performance of Government Agencies

ABSTRACT

While collaboration among individuals, work groups, and organizations is central for understanding the performance of public agencies, most studies have focused on collaboration between organizations or sectors. We develop a model that focuses on two types of collaborative behavior: between persons (both horizontal and vertical) and between work units. We empirically test our hypotheses using data on work collaboration and perceptions of public agency performance from the United States federal government. We introduce a method for estimating the impact of different types of collaborative behavior that also accounts for nonlinear effects and a dependent variable that takes ordered values. We find that intra-organizational collaborative behavior has a large impact on organizational performance and that horizontal collaborative behavior between workers has the greatest impact among the specific types.     

Labour supply and wages among nuclear and extended households: The Surinamese experiment

This article explores labour market behaviour of members of extended and nuclear households in Suriname. Previous analyses have found that co‐operative childcare opportunities within the extended household increase female labour force participation. Such coordination implies correlated participation decisions, which invalidates standard assumptions made in estimating participation with probits and wages with regressions. We employ a GMM estimation, which allows correlation among household members. We find that extended and nuclear household members are not significantly different in participation propensities, but do differ significantly in wages. We argue that greater home production opportunities in extended households dilute labour market effort and hours, reducing earnings.     

Revisiting the Meaning of Development: A Multidimensional Taxonomy of Developing Countries

Many have challenged the use of income per capita as the primary proxy for measuring development since Seers’s seminal works. This article continues this tradition with a more recent twist. We use cluster analysis to build a multidimensional taxonomy of developing countries using a set of indicators covering four conceptual frames on ‘development’. The value-added of the article is not to suggest that our classification is the end in itself, but – more modestly – to demonstrate that more work on taxonomies is required in light of the weakness of classifications based solely on income and the changing distribution of global poverty.     

Responding to Food Insecurity: Employing the Market Information and Food Insecurity Response Analysis Framework in Rural Northern Kenya

Aid agencies are increasingly advocating for cash transfers as a substitute or complement to food transfers when responding to both emergency and chronic food insecurity. Yet, cash is not always optimal. In this article, we demonstrate how a newly developed response analysis tool, the Marketing Information and Food Insecurity Response Analysis (MIFIRA) framework can guide evidence-based identification of appropriate transfers. We present findings from a MIFIRA analysis in Marsabit; a remote and generally food-insecure district of northern Kenya. As a demonstration of the analytical versatility of MIFIRA, we utilise a variety of data, ranging from rigorously-collected household data, to market surveys and rapid assessments in focus groups. As a proof of concept, this article shows how MIFIRA can be effectively deployed in other regions facing chronic or emergency food insecurity to help response agencies make systematic decisions on a solid evidence base.     

Cultural Capital and Sustainable Livelihoods in Sri Lanka's Rural Villages: Towards Culturally Aware Development

Increasing attention is being directed towards the role of culture in the development and well-being of rural communities. Systems of knowledge, beliefs, customs, norms and a wide range of culturally related activities, such as arts, crafts and music, can play a significant role in the everyday lives of people and contribute to the sustainability of human societies. The means through which culture can be effectively incorporated into development processes requires further research. This article develops the concept of ‘cultural capital’ to explore how cultural assets sustain an artisan class in three rural villages close to the city of Kandy in central Sri Lanka. The field research found that embodied cultural traditions and subsequent material outputs are vital ‘resources’ in achieving livelihood objectives and meeting family aspirations. We argue that the development industry needs to reconsider cultural assets and traditions and incorporate them into its work at conceptual and programmatic levels. Conceptually development needs to see itself as a cultural as much as economic or social process, and programmatically we see openings within sustainable livelihoods approaches for a greater explicit appreciation and awareness of locally-specific cultural traditions, strengths and perspectives.     

From Polarisation to Integration in Vietnam

This paper analyses the growth trajectory of China and related structural change to assess China's capacity to continue its rapid growth over the next decade. The evidence demonstrates that the multi-path approach undertaken has enabled China to transform its economy from low value-added towards high value-added activities through structural change from low to high value-added industries, as well as upgrading within industries. In doing so, China did not follow the neo-liberal advocacy of freeing markets. Selective state interventions facilitated China's transformation from an agricultural to an industrial economy over the last few decades. Upgrading towards higher value-added activities and the continuing strength of macroeconomic indicators, such as balance of payment and capital account surpluses, and low trade intensity of GDP and debt service along with significant deepening in human capital and R&;D activities, suggests that China will continue to grow relatively rapidly over the next decade. To do this China needs to find solutions to growing deficits in power and water supply, and potentially dangerous political upheavals if growing economic inequality problems are not solved.     

Factor markets and resource allocation in colonial Punjab

It is often argued that agricultural factor markets in colonial India were underdeveloped, leading to inefficient resource use and slow agricultural development. However, there is little econometric evidence on these issues. This article outlines a model which incorporates the factor market imperfections discussed in the literature and tests the model against data from the Punjab. There is, in the statistical sense, evidence of resource misallocation; however, these effects are too small to be of much economic significance.     

Book Reviews

Jarol B. Manheim, All of the People all the Time: Strategic Communication and American Politics (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1991), 255 pp. $25.00.

Harry C. Mansfield, Jr., America's Constitutional Soul (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1991), pp. 236.

Donald L. Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa? (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991), 293 pp. $24.95.