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Saturday, June 24, 2006
License to kill
Corruption, in some cases, can have an economic benefit. Joel Waldfogel explains:
In fact, I can't think of any kind of corruption in India where the benefits outweigh the costs. In most that come to mind, any benefits lie in avoiding costs that shouldn't exist in the first place. Example: Until some years ago, one expedited getting a phone line by paying a bribe. Well, there shouldn't be a waiting period for getting a phone anyway, the waiting period was there solely to get bribes out of people -- discretion inevitably leads to corruption.
So what's changed there?
Click here to read the rest of this post.
(Link via email from David Boyk.)
Since access to government clerks is normally allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, people pay with their time rather than their money. This is inefficient: Suppose you're in a big hurry and would be willing to pay a lot to avoid waiting, while I don't mind waiting. Then you could go ahead of me, making you a lot better off and me only a little worse off, which reduces our collective frustration. One way to achieve this efficiency would be to charge a higher price for expedited service. Yet, an expedited government service option typically does not exist. So, in some countries, the offer of a bribe in exchange for quicker processing is a common form of corruption—reducing the social cost of waiting in line.However, Waldfogel finds that "[t]he benefits of corruption are not worth the costs," and illustrates this by telling us about The Department of Motor Vehicles in New Delhi, where you don't have to know how to drive to get a driving license. Read about it: it's quite astonishing, and yet, if you live in India, utterly normal.
In fact, I can't think of any kind of corruption in India where the benefits outweigh the costs. In most that come to mind, any benefits lie in avoiding costs that shouldn't exist in the first place. Example: Until some years ago, one expedited getting a phone line by paying a bribe. Well, there shouldn't be a waiting period for getting a phone anyway, the waiting period was there solely to get bribes out of people -- discretion inevitably leads to corruption.
So what's changed there?
Click here to read the rest of this post.
(Link via email from David Boyk.)
