Corruption and Growth
How much does corruption damage the prospects for economic growth? Let's look at the evidence.
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Uh, a very complicated issue. The concept of "corruption" implies a strong judge of value and values are not the same for everyone. Corruption is usually understood as an unfair advantage but, who can determine what is fair and under what conditions? Some people is strongly convinced that capitalistic system and free market are the worst example of corruption and USA is by far the most corrupt country in the world, I don´t think so but I understand that under certain framework of values this may be a valid opinion.In North Korea corruption is when you try to apply free market mechanisms, a highly corrupted system do not harm the growth in this case, on the contrary.I just want to stress how the mindset affect any discussion about corruption who can easily derive into manichean, useless conclusions. I think is better try case by case specifically because talk on "corruption" in general terms may be misleading
corruption can never be good for any country because what is bad has no other name except bad.No any growth corruption can bring in any country.corruption is bad.
An interesting value judgement and certainly I can not argue against that, it is absolutely valid. However in the same line someone can argue against "usury" (loan money with interest), or even against capitalism or free market, in fact many does it so.
I don´t claim that your value judgement is wrong, but it is not universally applicable, other people may have different values, so I think it is not so useful in an economic discussion, at least if intend to remain positive.
From Wikipedia: "Government corruption occurs when an elected representative makes decisions that are influenced by vested interest rather than their own personal or party ideological beliefs." I don't think that fair/unfair value judgements would play any role in corruption with this definition. If an official, following his party line or his beliefs, decides they will grant business licenses to brown-eyed people and not to any other eye-colored people, it may seem wrong or unfair to you but I would not call this corruption.
Good point Alex, but the definition from Wikipedia has some problems: there are no way to know what it is in the mind of other people. How you can determine if someone acts driven by "vested interest" or by "his ideology"? I think that it is useless try to discriminate intentions. Also I think this definition has an implicit moral judgment implying that vested interest is "wrong" and ideology is "OK" , but everyone act driven by vested interest, even the saints. What I mean is that moral judgments are good, but may be discussed in other context and not used in economic discussions, because moral values are not the same for everyone.
From an economist's point of view is there a differences between corruption and lobbying?
I would think so. Let's say to start your business, you must pay a bribe to some number of officials. This is somewhat like having to pay an official tax, which we know begets some deadweight loss. However, it's even worse - instead of a government (hopefully) redistributing the tax revenue to (hopefully) benefit everyone, the bribery revenue is captured by one individual whose interests may not align with the rest of the nation's.
What about the lobby which supports American sugar growers or the fact that GE, doctors and hospitals
spend the most on lobbying in US after chambers of commerce?
corruption is what all the people know as something that is not right.e.g giving money to civil servant before rendering a service but to lobbying is what is right .it will not involve giving of money but if money is involve it has become bribe.e.g lobbying for contract.
How do you feel personally in the act of corruption occurring in life, in reference to recollection of near death moment?