Corruption and Development: Not what you think gives us a new way of thinking about corruption, that is corruption does not matter a lot for development. The author mentions that corruption can also grease the wheels of prosperity in countries where bureaucracies and organizations are inefficient, since bribery can make the government provide better services for those who have highest opportunity cost of waiting. Also he talks that corruption is a symptom of a deeper problem and not a cause of poverty itself, so that fighting for corruption is only a distraction from the real issue.
Schuster Article Summary
I read the article “What the UK civil service can learn from developing countries on pay and acting on evidence”. The headline caught my eye because it seems as if everyone always, with good intentions mostly, asks how we can help and improve the developing world without ever considering what we can learn from them. Essentially, he reviews corruption data from developing countries from every continent, spots out the trends that seem to be causing problems with corruption within the state, and then applies the lessons learned developed nations, namely the UK. While he recognizes that the UK has a merit based system that has eliminated corruption, he argues that they need to be more competitive with their salaries for bureaucrats because unsatisfactory pay can lead to taking bribes and corruption. He points to the statistic that only 34% of bureaucrats are satisfied with pay and benefits, which he believes is dangerously low and attention should be paid to this if the UK wants to maintain a strong and trustworthy bureaucracy.
