arrangement may have to be constantly renegotiated to extend the life of the benefit or to prevent its collapse. Indeed, the briber, having flouted the law, may fall prey to extortion from which it may prove too difficult to extricate himself. Rose-Ackerman (1998) observes that in Malaysia companies that had secured illegal logging rights had incentives to cut as many trees as possible as fast as possible, as there was no certainty that these rights would not soon be revoked. There are similar examples with oil and mining concessions in other countries. Of course, in an uncertain environment with insecure property rights, the firm will be less willing to invest and to plan for the longer-term. Thus, a short-term focus to maximize short-term profits will be the optimal strategy, even if this leads to deforestation or the rapid exhaustion of non-renewable resources. The structure of production for the firm paying bribes will thus be potentially distorted.

This uncertainty is partly responsible for a perversion in the sorts of incentives that prompt individuals to want to seek public office. Where corruption is rife, politicians will want to remain in office as long as possible, not because they are necessarily (or even remotely) serving the public good, but merely because they will not want to yield to others the pecuniary benefits of high office—hence the prevalence of “presidents for life” in a large number of countries, particularly in Africa. Where long stays in office are no longer an option, then the new government will want to steal as much as possible as quickly as possible, given a relatively short window of opportunity. Michaela Wrong’s _It’s Our Turn to Eat_ (2009) provides an excellent case study of the latter, as applied to the case of Kenya following the departure of Daniel arap Moi in 2002, after 24 corruption-ridden years in power.

# **_Secrecy and deceit_**

Corruption encourages secrecy, which makes it difficult to have informed debate about the incidence and effects of corruption. Stiglitz (1999) notes that government officials may engage in secrecy and secretive practices for a variety of reasons. For instance, secrecy is often a convenient way to hide mistakes or to diminish the probability of being accused of making mistakes. Public policy is inherently difficult and officials, fearing public criticism, may find it more convenient to act in ways that are opaque, which protect their actions from potentially tough public scrutiny. With little information disclosure, governments can portray the results of policies and decisions in a way that casts a more favorable light on their performance. It is widely acknowledged, for instance, that Greece “qualified” for participation in the euro area by cooking the data, by disguising the true state of the public finances (particularly as regards defence spending), something that would not have been possible in a system with full and open disclosure of all relevant fiscal data.

A second incentive for secrecy according to Stiglitz (1999, p. 11) is that “secrecy provides the opportunity for special interests to have greater sway.” The United States invested trillions of dollars during the Cold War to build up a fearsome military establishment. But this was based on a wild overestimation of the economic and military might of the Soviet Union which, as events subsequently demonstrated, was a terminally ill patient suffering from severe elephantiasis. Had 23