control rights in complex partnerships this paper develops a theory of the allocation of authority between two players who are in a complex partnership that is a partnership which produces impure public goods we show that the optimal allocation depends on technological factors the parties valuations of the goods produced and the degree of impurity of these goods when the degree of impurity is large control rights should be given to the main investor irrespective of preference considerations there are some situations in which this allocation is optimal even if the degree of impurity is very low as long as one party s investment is more important than the other party s if the parties investments are of similar importance and the degree of impurity is large shared authority is optimal with a greater share going to the low valuation party if the importance of the parties investments is similar but the degree of impurity is neither large nor small the low valuation party should receive sole authority we analyze an extension in which side payments are infeasible we check for robustness of our results in several dimensions such as allowing for multiple parties or for joint authority and apply our results to interpret a number of complex partnerships including those involving schools and child custody jel d02 o23 h41 l31

moral hazard in risk averse teams holmstrom 1982 has shown that a non budget balancing contract induces a team of risk neutral agents to choose the first best effort levels this is not generally true when agents are risk averse furthermore a massacre contract which punishes all but one agent when the outcome is low can attain the first best over a wider range of parameters than any other budget balancing contract

the informal sector and the political economy of development this paper takes an initial step in integrating insights from two sets of literature which have focused on central aspects of development with unfortunate independence it highlights politically valuable resources which are identified in the political economy literature and shows that the informal sector literature provides ample evidence that these resources in general are i scarcely available to informal entities ii poorly valued in their possession and iii more often collectively unexploited by them overall there seems to be an important though neglected bias in how the political system in less developed countries formulates crafts and implements policy

burr under the saddle how media coverage influences strategic change in this paper we introduce a new antecedent to the strategic change literature by examining the effect of media coverage on the extent of strategic change specifically we examine how negative media coverage may prompt firms to make changes to their resource allocations and then explore how the makeup of the board and firm performance can moderate this relationship we develop a theoretical framework to explain why media coverage may affect strategic change and then test our theory with a longitudinal analysis of 250 firms over a four year period the empirical results lend support to our theory of media influence on strategic change and suggest that the evaluations of firms by outside constituents may influence the decision making of executives

media bias and influence evidence from newspaper endorsements this paper investigates the relationship between media bias and the inuence of the media on voting in the context of newspaper endorsements werst develop a simple econometric model in which voters choose candidates under uncertainty and rely on endorsements from better informed sources newspapers are potentially biased in favor of one of the candidates and voters thus rationally ac count for the credibility of any endorsements our primary empiricalnding is that endorsements are inuential in the sense that voters are more likely to support the recommended candidate after publication of the endorsement the degree of this inuence however depends upon the credibility of the endorsement in this way endorsements for the democratic candidate from left leaning news papers are less inuential than are endorsements from neutral or right leaning or newspapers and likewise for endorsements for the republican thesendings suggest that voters do rely on the media for information during campaigns but that the extent of this reliance depends upon the degree and direction of any bias

dimensions of civic activism and their effectiveness in exposing corruption evidence from italy this article studies the influence of civic activism in exposing corruption across italian regions using different dimensions of civic activism including local and national newspapers the intern

steven d levitt 2003 john bates clark medalist steve s clark medal citation mentions his path breaking contributions to the economics of crime and to the political economy of campaign finance this paper describes steve s research in each of these areas as well as his contributions on a range of other topics it identifies the substantive themes as well as the methodological patterns that run through steve s research and it describes the economic issues that have been informed by his analysis

does immigration impact institutions the economics literature generally finds a positive but small gain in income to native born populations from immigrants and potentially large gains in world incomes but immigrants can also impact a recipient nation s institutions a growing empirical literature supports the importance of strong private property rights a rule of law and an environment of economic freedom for promoting long run prosperity but little is known about how immigration impacts these institutions this paper empirically examines how immigration impacts a nation s policies and institutions we find no evidence of negative and some evidence of positive impacts in institutional quality as a result of immigration

fiscal transparency political parties and debt in oecd countries abstract many believe and argue that fiscal or budgetary transparency has large positive effects on fiscal performance however the evidence linking transparency and fiscal policy outcomes is less compelling to analyze the effects of fiscal transparency on public debt accumulation we present a career concerns model with political parties this allows us to integrate as implications of a single model three hitherto separate results in the literature on deficit and debt accumulation that transparency decreases debt accumulation at least by reducing an electoral cycle in deficits that right wing governments at least for strategic reasons tend to have higher deficits than left wing governments and that increasing political polarization increases debt accumulation to test the predictions of the model we construct a replicable index of fiscal transparency on 19 country oecd data simultaneous estimates of debt and transparency strongly confirm that a higher degree of fiscal transparency is associated with lower public debt and deficits independent of controls for explanatory variables from other approaches

quantity restrictions on advertising commercial media bias and welfare abstract we study the welfare effect of a quantity restriction on advertising in free to air television and other advertising financed media in the presence of commercial media bias broadcasters face a trade off between increasing the number of viewers by sending content that is highly valued by viewers and increasing the price of advertising by choosing advertiser friendly content a cap on advertising drives the per viewer price of ads up thus content improves for viewers therefore the cap can be welfare enhancing even when viewers are not ad averse competition among broadcasters makes it more likely that a cap on advertising improves welfare thus there is a complementarity between regulation and competition on this market we also show that a tax on advertising revenues has quite different effects than a cap on advertising quantity

trade liberalization and rural poverty work trade affects aggregate income and relative prices it alters investment and savings decisions and thus has intertemporal effects it may also alter tax revenues and public spending and its effects are conditioned by transport costs and location specific phenomena this makes simple measurement of the effects of trade very difficult and the attribution of causality almost impossible a problem that has long plagued the literature on trade and growth see baldwin for a survey attempts to measure the effects of trade on poverty in developing countries face additional challenges in that most of the poor are found in rural areas in farming and frequently outside of the formal economy with the consequence that their activities and incomes can be measured only very approximately the poor also reveal a frustrating to data gatherers at least tendency to move around in pursuit of job opportunities rigorous answers to important and controversial empirical questions such as whether trade liberalization reduces poverty have proved elusive

bias in economic news the reporting of nominal exchange rate behavior in colombia proquest denotes formulae omitted the behavior of the nominal exchange rate ner is regularly reported and commented on in colombian newspapers editorials and op eds however the number and flavor of the news and commentary seem to increase disproportionately during revaluation in contrast to periods of devaluation 1 during the course of a revaluation it is common to read claims not facts in the press of firms and entire industries in distress owing to revaluation and arguments about the benefits of outdated policies such as fixed and multiple exchange rates implemented after 1967 with the enactment of law 444 congreso de colombia 1967 if not a dollarization of the economy 2on one hand many news articles and op ed pieces often maintain that revaluation is devastating for the macroeconomic performance of the country owing to the reduced income for exporters and holders of foreign debt and the subsequent effects on the employment and wages of workers in related industries on the other hand when devaluation occurs little attention is paid in news editorials or op eds there are no complaints addressing the plausible effects of a devaluation such as inflation from higher prices of foreign capital machinery and equipment or imported raw materials this asymmetry in media reporting is hard to understand why would revaluation be more important to report and discuss than devaluation why are there claims of the benefits of a fixed exchange rate when the country has already gone through the crippling effects of an exchange rate black market premium easterly 2002 p 222 describes a high black market premium as a punitive tax on exporters not a good incentive for growth finally why after almost twenty years of experience with a market determined nominal exchange rate is revaluation still reported as harmful for the economy even though there have been more devaluation episodes than revaluation ones 3 one answer to these questions lies in media bias in reporting the behavior of the ner the existence of an interest group supplying media outlets with news to increase the awareness of readers and government officials of the catastrophic consequences of revaluation is considered when this is the case the media benefit from a larger audience and subsequent higher income from advertising revenues the interest group s goal is further satisfied when the fiscal authority offers subsidies or the monetary authority intervenes in the exchange rate market when a government related institution steps in to tame the expressions of discomfort it fulfills the goal of increasing political affection and public acceptance there is a growing literature on the economics of media bias and media slant gentzkow and shapiro 2008 and larcinese puglisi and snyder 2011 offer a review of the theoretical and empirical approaches to this topic the literature describes both supply and demand side models on the supply side the distortions of the news its relationship with the private sector and the government capture of media are the core subjects on the demand side the distortion comes from the public and its preference for news with a certain bias or slant and the media competition for their attention the empirical evidence of media bias shown in this paper fits into the supply side models and the idea of media capture not by the government but by an interest group specifically the work of corneo 2006 is an appropriate analytic framework for the alleged sources of media bias and slant in this paper corneo 2006 builds a voting model of media capture at the hands of special interests to begin with the interest group looking for a policy that will favor its current status seeks to form a coalition with the media the media can accept or refuse the formation of a coalition when they do refuse media demonstrate their independence and commitment to honest reporting

efficiency of nonpoint source pollution instruments an experimental study in nonpoint source pollution problems the regulator does not observe each polluter s individual emission which prevents him from using the conventional policy instruments therefore new instruments have been designed to regulate this type of pollution in an experiment we compare the efficiency of some of these instruments an input based tax an ambient tax subsidy an ambient tax and a group fine we assume that polluters themselves are affected by environmental damages a control session without any regulation is also carried out in order to study the status quo situation our experimental data show that the input tax and the ambient tax are very efficient and reliable and the group fine is fairly efficient and reliable these instruments improve social welfare with respect to the status quo on the contrary the ambient tax subsidy decreases social welfare with respect to the status quo and its effect is very unreliable

television in a digital age what role for public service broadcasting public service broadcasting the television broadcasting industry is subject to an exceptionally high level of public intervention but one of the reasons for this the absence of competition is fast disappearing as households become multi channel this paper is concerned with whether a case for public service broadcasting remains and if so what form it should take there are several other potential sources of market failure but a lack of evidence often makes judging their practical significance difficult to help overcome this problem and provide the basis for improved public accountability the paper proposes several measures of public service broadcasting performance the paper also considers when the appropriate remedy for these failures might take the form of dedicated public service broadcasters like the bbc rai ard france 2 etc it suggests that in general targeted supply side interventions of this sort only make sense when they address a supply side failure and that dedicated public service broadcasters are to be preferred to alternative types of targeted intervention like an arts council of the air on contractual grounds shaun p hargreaves heap

empirical determinants of corruption a sensitivity analysis many variables have been proposed by past studies as significant determinants of corruption this paper asks if their estimated impact on corruption is robust to alteration of the information set a global sensitivity analysis based on the leamer s extreme bounds analysis gives a clear answer five variables are robustly related to corruption corruption is lower in richer countries where democratic institutions have been preserved for a long continuous period and the population is mainly protestant corruption is instead higher where political instability is a major problem finally a country s colonial heritage appears to be a significant determinant of present corruption

the effect of ideological positions on job market interaction a spatial analysis abstract reporters and editors may not have the same ideology when an editor wants to employ a new reporter with a different ideology they have to negotiate the price of moving from their own ideology to the other s ideology we focus on the job market for reporters where the agents negotiate over the ideological position to be reported and wage we adopt a spatial model in which each agent suffers a utility loss as the agreed upon position moves away from his her favored one equilibrium determines a threshold ideological gap for a match to be formed our analysis generates a natural separation between extreme mildly extreme and moderate ideologies furthermore we find that agents that hold extreme ideologies compromise less than moderates this formulation may be applied to other situations in which agents involve monetary and non monetary considerations especially a preference for social proximity jel codes j32 j44

press freedom externally generated transparency and stock price informativeness international evidence abstract this paper examines the impact of press freedom on stock price informativeness in a sample of firms from 50 countries we find a significant relation between more press freedom and lower stock price synchronicity our results suggest that the freedom of the press can enhance the information environment of stock markets

radio s impact on public spending if informed voters receive favorable policies then the invention of a new mass medium may affect government policies since it affects who is informed and who is not these ideas are developed in a voting model the model forms the basis for an empirical investigation of a major new deal relief program implemented in the middle of the expansion period of radio the main empirical finding is that u s counties with many radio listeners received more relief funds more funds were allocated to poor counties with high unemployment but controlling for these and other variables the effects of radio are large and highly significant

the political economy of government responsiveness theory and evidence from india the determinants of government responsiveness to its citizens is a key issue in political economy here we develop a model based on the solution of political agency problems having a more informed an politically active electorate strengthens incentives for governments to be responsive this suggests that there is a role both for democratic institutions and the mass media in ensuring that the preferences of citizens are reflected in policy the ideas behind the model are tested on panel data from india we show that public food distribution and calamity relief expenditure are greater controlling for shocks where governments face greater electoral accountability and where newspaper circulation is highest

mass media and special interest groups abstract media revenues are an important determinant of media behavior it is generally accepted that news coverage depends not only on the preferences of media consumers but also on the preferences of advertisers or subsidizing groups however existing models reach the opposite conclusions about the relationship between the profitability of advertising and media bias we present a theoretical model that reconciles these results the model shows that the sign of the effect of marginal costs of production or marginal advertising revenues on the level of distortion in news coverage depends on complementarity or substitutability between media bias and audience size for an interest group the existence of a budget constraint for an interest group and media outlets reliance on subscription in addition to advertising revenues

media monitoring and capture of public funds evidence from madagascar summary this paper investigates the role of media and monitoring in reducing capture we analyze data on capture of public expenditures by local officials in madagascar our findings indicate important constraints on decentralization of public service delivery in particular in remote areas capture could be successfully constrained through a combination of media programs and monitoring intensive monitoring and access to media reduce capture however the impact of media is conditional on characteristics of the population with high illiteracy in poor regions the effectiveness of newspaper and poster campaigns is limited and radio and television programs are more important to reduce capture

optimal contracts for teams in a team subject to both adverse selection each member s ability is known only to himself and moral hazard effort cannot be observed optimal contracts are under certain conditions linear in the team s output the outcome is the same whether the principal observes just the total output or each individual s contribution thus monitoring is not needed to prevent shirking by team members instead the role of monitoring is to discipline the monitor production is a collective enterprise by workers in a firm or firms in a joint venture the synergy that is the reason for the team s existence may mean that an individual s contribution to the team s output is not distinguishable so that it is impossible to pay him according to his own productivity how should the principal remunerate the team members so as to maximize his own profit in this paper we analyze incentives in teams with asymmetric information both adverse selection each member s ability is known only to himself and moral hazard effort cannot be observed directly holmstrom 1982 showed that in a team model with moral hazard the principal can ensure an outcome arbitrarily close to the full information ideal by using a contract that punishes each team member arbitrarily severely whenever team output falls below some target however this seems to be an unrealistically drastic way of solving the moral hazard problem in our model we in effect prevent the principal from using such a contract by introducing adverse selection in addition to moral hazard and by assuming that ability and effort interact in such a way that the principal is unable to disentangle an agent s effort from his ability under the assumption that the principal and the team members are risk neutral we shall show that the principal can implement his information constrained optimum simply by offering each agent a payment linear in the team s output although the essential feature of our analysis is the interaction between adverse selection and moral hazard this result can be understood by first considering the special case in which the agents abilities are common knowledge in this case the moral hazard problem can be completely solved the principal can do as well as he

a damage based tax mechanism for regulation of non point emissions in a recent paper segerson 1988 proposed a novel incentive mechanism for stochastic non point emissions based on ambient pollution concentrations in nature for specification of the mechanism when the damage function is nonlinear the regulator must know polluters cost and emission functions the mechanism also gives incentives to form coalitions among polluters which if they are formed render the mechanism inefficient in this paper we propose a revised mechanism which eliminates the need for knowledge of polluters cost and emission functions and reduces the probability of coalition forming a standards and pricing version of the revised mechanism with both properties mentioned is also developed

government control of the media abstract we present a formal model of government control of the media to illuminate variation in media freedom across countries and over time media bias is greater and state ownership of the media more likely when the government has a particular interest in mobilizing citizens to take actions that further some political objective but are not necessarily in citizens individual best interest however the distinction between state and private media is smaller large advertising markets reduce media bias in both state and private media but increase the incentive for the government to nationalize private media media bias in state and private media markets diverge as governments become more democratic whereas media bias in democracies and autocracies converge as positive externalities from mobilization increase

group decision making theory and behavior under performance based water quality payments abstract two theoretical models explaining group allocation decisions under watershed level performance based payments are explored i reward and penalize individual contributors and ii reduce the problem with cost sharing and cooperative abatement under model i an optimal amount of pollution from individual contributors can be achieved with proper payment incentive and group allocation formula model ii represents a cost effective solution to pollution reduction where the group optimizes its return from group payments but does not necessarily achieve an optimal level of pollution field experiment observations support farmer behavior closer to model ii

media bias in china this paper examines whether and how market competition affected the political bias of government owned newspapers in china from 1981 to 2011 we measure media bias based on coverage of government mouthpiece content propaganda relative to commercial content we first find that a reform that forced newspaper exits reduced competition affected media bias by increasing product specialization with some papers focusing on propaganda and others on commercial content second lower level governments produce less biased content and launch commercial newspapers earlier eroding higher level governments political goals third bottom up competition intensifies the politico economic tradeoff leading to product proliferation and less audience exposure to propaganda

access to finance an unfinished agenda recent data compilations show that many poor and non poor people in many developing countries face a high degree of financial exclusion and high barriers in access to finance theory and empirical evidence point to the critical role that improved access to finance has in promoting growth and reducing income inequality an extensive literature shows the channels through which finance promotes enterprise growth and improves aggregate resource allocation there is less evidence at the household level however and on the effectiveness of policies to overcome financial exclusion the article summarizes recent efforts to measure and analyze the impact of access to finance and discusses the unfinished research agenda

is the media liberal an indirect test using news magazine circulation many critics allege that the us national news media is biased in favour of liberal causes and democratic candidates the lack of an objective measure of news content ensures that such charges remain controversial i consider an indirect test for media bias if the national news media do exhibit a liberal bias consumption should be higher in liberal media markets ceteris paribus i examine determinants of circulation of the three major weekly news magazines across the us and find that newsweek and time have higher circulation in liberal markets while us news has higher circulation in conservative markets the evidence is consistent with a liberal bias for time and newsweek while us news may be relatively conservative but still left of centre or absolutely conservative

the influence of governance infrastructure and corporate governance on profit shifting in this article we develop a conceptual model to examine the influence of quality of country level governance infrastructure and corporate governance effectiveness on profit shifting we empirically test propositions derived from the model with a unique firm level data set and using multiple indicators of governance infrastructure quality and corporate governance mechanisms we estimate that on average about 6 of total pre tax income is shifted out of foreign owned firms in india we show that governance infrastructure that improves collective action and transparency in both the foreign and host country reduces shifting on the other hand secure property rights and efficient contracting in the foreign country increases shifting we also find that monitoring by foreign institutional investors restricts shifting

media freedom and gender equality a cross national instrumental variable quantile analysis we investigate the impact of media freedom on gender equality in education for a sample of 63 countries taken over the period 1995 2004 our analysis is motivated by the idea that the impact of media freedom on gender equality may differ over the conditional distribution of the response variable using instrumental variable quantile regression to control for endogeneity in per capita income we find that greater freedom of the media improves gender equality only in the 0 25 and 0 50 quantiles of the conditional distribution countries with the greatest disparities in gender outcomes experience no significant impact of media freedom

media capture in a democracy the role of wealth concentration abstract since objective news coverage is vital to democracy captured media can seriously distort collective decisions the current paper develops a voting model where citizens are uncertain about the welfare effects induced by alternative policy options and derive information about those effects from the mass media the media might however secretly collude with interest groups in order to influence the public opinion in the case of voting over the level of a productivity enhancing public bad it is shown that an increase in the concentration of firm ownership makes the occurrence of media bias more likely although media bias is not always welfare worsening conditions for it to raise welfare are restrictive

ambient taxes when polluters have multiple choices economic research on environmental policy design has largely been concerned with the merits of emissions based economic incentives e g emissions charges emissions reduction subsidies transferable discharge permits ambient based tax subsidy schemes have drawn considerable interest in nonpoint pollution literature as alternatives to emissions based instruments expanding especially on segerson s seminal article this article examines the optimal design and budget balancing properties of ambient tax subsidy schemes under more realistic assumptions about the dimensions of firms choice sets than prior research

policy uncertainty in hybrid regimes evidence from firm level surveys cross national surveys suggest that regulatory and policy uncertainty is an important constraint on investment in developing countries yet there has been little direct empirical investigation of the sources of this uncertainty this article presents evidence of an inverted u shaped relationship between firms perceptions of policy uncertainty and political regime type firms in hybrid regimes report higher levels of concern over policy uncertainty than those in either more authoritarian regimes or liberal established democracies the authors argue that the explanation lies with a combination of polarized political competition and limited access to credible information and test their theory using survey data of around 10 000 firms from the world bank european bank for reconstruction and development s business environment and enterprise performance survey from 27 postcommunist countries and five organisation for economic co operation and development countries methodologically the authors propose a means

state owned mncs and host country expropriation risk the role of home state soft power and economic gunboat diplomacy expropriation risk has a binding effect on foreign direct investment fdi however state owned multinational corporations may counter the monopoly power of the host state by leveraging the political influence of their home government the magnitude of this counter force we argue may vary depending on the strength of political relations between the home and host state and the level of economic dependence of the host country on the home market we find supporting evidence of our hypotheses using chinese firm level fdi information between 2003 and 2010

banking services for everyone barriers to bank access and use around the world using information from 193 banks in 58 countries the authors develop and analyze indicators of physical access affordability and eligibility barriers to deposit loan and payment services they find substantial cross country variation in barriers to banking and show that in many countries these barriers can potentially exclude a significant share of the population from using banking services correlations with bank and country level variables show that bank size and the availability of physical infrastructure are the most robust predictors of barriers further the authors find evidence that in more competitive open and transparent economies and in countries with better contractual and informational frameworks banks impose lower barriers finally though foreign banks seem to charge higher fees than other banks in foreign dominated banking systems fees are lower and it is easier to open bank accounts and to apply for loans on the other hand in systems that are predominantly government owned customers pay lower fees but also face greater restrictions in terms of where to apply for loans and how long it takes to have applications processed these findings have important implications for policy reforms to broaden access

media freedom political knowledge and participation this paper examines the relationship between media freedom from government control and citizens political knowledge political participation and voter turnout to explore these connections i first examine media freedom and citizens political knowledge in thirteen central and eastern european countries with data from freedom house s freedom of the press report and the european commission s candidate countries eurobarometer survey next i consider media freedom and citizens political participation in 60 countries using data from the world values survey finally i investigate media freedom and voter turnout in these same 60 or so countries with data from the international institute for democracy and electoral assistance i find that where government owns a larger share of media outlets and infrastructure regulates the media industry more and does more to control the content of news citizens are more politically ignorant and apathetic where the media is less regulated and there is greater private ownership in the media industry citizens are more politically knowledgeable and active these results are robust to sample specification and alternative measures of media freedom

halving global poverty the goal of central importance to this paper is to cut in half the proportion of people living below 1 a day from around 30 percent of the developing world s population in 1990 to 15 percent by 2015 based on population projections in 1990 this would correspond to around one billion people exiting poverty this paper begins by discussing poverty trends on a global scale where the poor are located in the world and how their numbers have been changing over time it then discusses the relationship of economic growth and income distribution to poverty reduction finally it suggests an evidence based agenda for poverty reduction in the developing world full text available at official url

inequality and media capture abstract popular support of redistributive policies depends on information they have about the tax system and efficiency of public projects mass media provides a convenient means for manipulating public opinion even when voters understand that the media can be biased i develop a theory of media capture in which the rich can influence information published in a media outlet at a cost the model shows that higher inequality is associated with lower media freedom this effect is stronger in democratic regimes i find empirical support for the model in both panel data and cross country analysis

local versus non local effects of chinese media and post earnings announcement drift abstract taking advantage of the institutional difference in capture between local and non local media in china we examined the association between media capture and post earnings announcement drift pead using both portfolio and regression analyses we found that for the same firms non local media coverage is negatively associated with pead however there is no association between local media coverage and pead except for non state owned firms given that in china non local media are less captured or more independent than local media the negative association observed for non local media coverage can be interpreted as an indication that media independence plays a role in reducing pead or improving informational efficiency in the stock market

team approaches in reducing nonpoint source pollution abstract it is technically difficult and costly to monitor nonpoint source pollution consequently most economic instruments directed towards reducing this type of pollution have focused on circumventing the monitoring problem by focusing on readily observable factors such instruments include taxes or tradable permits on inputs or other incentives to induce changes in farming practices one difficulty with such approaches is that the incentives may not be consistent with the primary objectives of the policies to reduce nutrient runoffs this paper seeks to identify under what conditions it would be beneficial to apply more direct incentives for reduced nutrient runoffs monitoring and enforcement are core issues in this connection it is still difficult to monitor individual farm field runoffs hence the incentive problems associated with multiple agents emitting to the same recipient need to be resolved

bank supervision and corruption in lending abstract which commercial bank supervisory policies ease or intensify the degree to which bank corruption is an obstacle to firms raising external finance based on new data from more than 2500 firms across 37 countries this paper provides the first empirical assessment of the impact of different bank supervisory policies on firms financing obstacles we find that the traditional approach to bank supervision which involves empowering official supervisory agencies to monitor discipline and influence banks directly does not improve the integrity of bank lending rather we find that a supervisory strategy that focuses on empowering private monitoring of banks by forcing banks to disclose accurate information to the private sector tends to lower the degree to which corruption of bank officials is an obstacle to firms raising external finance in extensions we find that regulations that empower private monitoring exert a particularly beneficial effect on the integrity of bank lending in countries with sound legal institutions

who owns the media the authors examine patterns of media ownership in 97 countries around the world they find that almost universally the largest media firms are controlled by the government or by private families government ownership is more pervasive in broadcasting than in the printed media government ownership is generally associated with less press freedom fewer political and economic rights inferior governance and most conspicuously inferior social outcomes in education and health the adverse effects of government ownership on political and economic freedom are stronger for newspapers than for television the adverse effects of government ownership of the media do not appear to be restricted solely to instances of government monopoly the authors present a range of evidence on the adverse consequences of state ownership of the media state ownership of the media is often argued to be justified on behalf of the social needs of the disadvantaged but if their findings are correct increasing private ownership of the media through privatization or by encouraging the entry of privately owned media can advance a variety of political and economic goals especially those of meeting the social needs of the poor

sunshine as disinfectant the effect of state freedom of information act laws on public corruption abstract we assess the effect of freedom of information act foia laws on public corruption in the united states specifically we investigate the impact of switching from a weak to a strong state level foia law on corruption convictions of state and local government officials the evidence suggests that strengthening foia laws has two offsetting effects reducing corruption and increasing the probability that corrupt acts are detected the conflation of these two effects led prior work to find little impact of foia on corruption we find that conviction rates approximately double after the switch which suggests an increase in detection probabilities however conviction rates decline from this new elevated level as the time since the switch from weak to strong foia increases this decline is consistent with officials reducing the rate at which they commit corrupt acts by about 20 these changes are more pronounced in states with more intense media coverage for those that had more substantial changes in their foia laws for foia laws which include strong liabilities for officials who contravene them for local officials and for more serious crimes conviction rates of federal officials who are not subject to the policy show no concomitant change