2012 Economics of Corruption

From October 6 to October 13, 2012 the University of Passau organizes "The Economics of Corruption: Lecture and Workshop in Good Governance and Reform". Around 80 participants are expected from around the world, including students, practitioners and doctoral scholars. Guest presentations by internationally reputable speakers will enrich the course to become truly interdisciplinary. More details will be posted soonest here.

This course is part of a comprehensive Master's Program at the University of Passau .

Call for Papers

A special Issue on

Corruption at the Grassroots-level - Between Temptation, Norms, and Culture

of the Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik) is guest edited by Johann Graf Lambsdorff (University of Passau) and Günther G. Schulze (University of Freiburg). We invite for contributions that employ experiments or microeconometric methods. Full papers are due December 1, 2012. All submissions are peer reviewed. For complete information please approach the call for papers or approach the journal.

Two New Discussion Papers Released

By help of a novel survey method approach households in 66 countries reveal their attitudes towards bribery. Read about the surprising results at the research area, contribution 30 of ICGG.

Another contribution 29 takes a Law and Economics perspective and links it to the problems of enforcing corrupt deal. It thus contributes to an anticorruption philosophy that provides cutting-edge insights for reform.

Three Reviews on The Institutional Economics of Corruption and Reform

The latest publication by Prof. Lambsdorff has been reviewed recently. Read the reviews in three leading journals. Public Choice, 2009, vol. 138 (1): 257-258, Comparative Economic Studies, 2009, Vol. 51 (1): 149-151, , Development and Change, 2008, Vol. 39(4): 711-712.

Publication by Prof. Graf Lambsdorff at Cambridge University Press released 2007

The Institutional Economics of Corruption and Reform: Theory, Evidence and Policy Corruption has been a feature of public institutions for centuries yet only relatively recently has it been made the subject of sustained scientific analysis. Lambsdorff shows how insights from institutional economics can be used to develop a better understanding of why corruption occurs and the best policies to combat it. He argues that rather than being deterred by penalties, corrupt actors are more influenced by other factors such as the opportunism of their criminal counterparts and the danger of acquiring a reputation of unreliabilty. This suggests a novel strategy for fighting corruption similar to the invisible hand that governs competitive markets. This strategy - the 'invisible foot' - shows that the unreliability of corrupt counterparts induces honesty and good governance even in the absence of good intentions. Combining theoretical research with state-of-the-art empirical investigations, this book will be an invaluable resource for researchers and policy-makers concerned with anti-corruption reform. Order this book now from Amazon

Chinese Version Passau, July 2007. A chinese translation of the book is now available. We would like to thank Guo Yong, Liu Guoxiang, Fan Xiaoyan and Qiao Jiying for translating and proofreading the book. Thanks are also due to Cai Wei, Cheng Wenhao and the Anti-Corruption & Governance Research Center, School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University.