1、中文 3023 字 出处： General Information, 2000, volume 47(2):133-136(25). 原文 Anti-corruption Policies and Programs Author: Jeff Huther ,Anwar Shah The Executive Board of the World Bank approved its anti-corruption strategy in September 1997. The strategy defined corruption as the use of public office for p
2、rivate gain and called for the Bank to address corruption along four dimensions: Preventing fraud and corruption in Bank projects Helping countries that request Bank assistance for corruption Mainstreaming a concern for corruption in Banks work Lending active support to international efforts to addr
3、ess corruption Following the adoption of this strategy, concrete steps to prevent fraud and corruption in Bank projects have included: the introduction of a confidential hotline, tightening of procurement guidelines, intensive audits of projects, and support for improving procurement systems in clie
4、nt countries. Mainstreaming a concern for corruption has taken place through the Banks economic and sector work which provides the analytic basis for country assistance strategy documents which, in turn, underlie the Banks lending programs. Of the analytical tools used in economic and sector work, i
5、nstitutional reviews, country financial accountability assessments and public expenditure reviews offer substantial scope for addressing the governance failures that permit wide spread corruption, country procurement assessment reports identify sources of corruption in procurement and recommend reme
6、dies, country economic memoranda can be used for relatively quick assessments of corruption sources, and country assistance evaluations may highlight areas where corruption concerns are undermining Bank work. In addition to economic and sector work, all country assistance strategy documents are now
7、required to diagnose the state of governance and the risks that corruption poses to Bank projects. The Comprehensive Development Framework unveiled in 1999 underscores the importance of governance and public sector institutional reform issues in the Banks development assistance dialogue. The World B
8、ank Institute has initiated courses on corruption for developing country officials and conducted surveys on service delivery. The Bank has also put a greater emphasis on institutional reform and capacity building through its lending program. Bank assistance for international efforts to curtail corru
9、ption has been mainly in the form of sponsorship of major conferences, dissemination notes and support for the adoption of the 1999 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. The impact of corruption on public service delivery performance
10、 and poverty alleviation is widely recognized. A wide consensus has also recently emerged that corruption is a symptom of failed governance see World Bank 2000 and hence curtailing corruption requires addressing the causes of mis-governance. Nevertheless, the menu of potential actions to curtail cor
11、ruption is very large so a framework is needed that provides guidance on ordering potential actions. Prioritization of various actions depends on both the conceptual and empirical views of what works and what does not work in the context of particular countries. Such a framework is also needed for e
12、valuating both Bank and country anticorruption programs. This note proposes a framework for such evaluations. A Simple Evaluation Frame work ,to focus attention on the corruption aspects of development programs, we use a framework based on the incentives for opportunistic behavior by public official
13、s. To distinguish between highly corrupt and largely corruption-free societies, consider the conditions that encourage public officials to seek out or accept corruption: The expected gains exceed the expected costs of undertaking a corrupt act. Little weight is placed on the cost that corruption imp
14、oses on others. The first point is based on pure self-interest: corruption will only take place when officials expect to derive net positive benefit from the transaction. Successful anticorruption programs will lower the expected gains and raise the expected penalties of corrupt behavior. That is, a
15、nti-corruption programs must change the cost-benefit calculations of public officials who believe that the expected net benefits of corruption are positive. A self-interested individual will seek out or accept corruption if the expected gains outweigh the costs, i.e. when: E B= n * E G - prob P x P
16、0 Where E is the expectations operator n is number of corrupt transactions G is the gain from the corrupt transaction prob P is the probability of paying a penalty P is the penalty for the corrupt activity Based on cost-benefit considerations, anti-corruption programs can influence corruption throug
17、h four mechanisms, reducing the number of transactions involving public officials, reducing the scope for gains from each transaction, increasing the probability of paying a penalty, or increasing the penalty from corrupt behavior. Reducing expected gross benefits: The expected net benefit derived f
18、rom corruption is context-dependent on the factors that influence a public officials expectations, a countrys historical treatment of corrupt activities, the quality of the judicial framework, the strength and scope of enforcement institutions, and the potential for changes in these characteristics
19、for escaping the procedures of legal recourse with illegal maneuvers. Thus relevant anti-corruption policies geared towards reducing the gross gains will vary with the institutional environment of each country. Transaction value can be reduced by scaling down of individual projects, requiring popula
20、r referenda for large projects with votes both on tax and expenditure allocation choices, de-monopolizing public services, promoting competition in the private sector, increasing the share of financing from domestic taxes or user charges,and bringing a culture of new contract ualism to the public se
21、ctor. Reducing the number of transactions: Policies which reduce the number of transactions that create opportunities for graft and private capture of public programs can include streamlining bureaucracy, economic or financial liberalization e.g. deregulation, freer trade, etc., improving service st
22、andards, and decentralizing government services. Privatization can reduce the number of transactions but, as recent experience in Eastern Europe shows, the privatization process itself involves transactions which may strengthen the hold of vested and sometimes corrupt interests so businesses operati
23、ng in a competitive environment, free of state financing, and with adequate governance safeguards may or may not emerge from privatization. Increasing the Probability of Paying Penalties: Increasing the probability of penalties is a three step process: detection, prosecution, and exacting the penalt
24、y. In cases where corruption is extortion for jobs that should be done as a matter of public service, improved detection is straight-forward - increase citizen participation in the electoral process, establish citizens charters specifying expected service standards, allow media independence, make in
25、teractions between the public and private sectors more transparent, and strengthen the rule of law so that both individuals and the media do not fear reprisals. Increasing the Magnitude of Penalties: There are corrupt societies which have stiff penalties for corruption, suggesting the magnitude of p
26、enalties may not be a strong deterrent to corruption. In general, people may not respond much differently to, say, an increase in penalties from five to ten years in prison, as Malaysia did in 1997 with no discernible change in perceptions of corruption as measured by Transparency International. In
27、some countries, however, the legislation setting penalties may be ambiguous or penalties may be set at the discretion of judges. In either case, a country may discourage corruption by clarifying corruption penalties. While the Bank may provide assistance in clarifying legislation, setting criminal p
28、enalties is outside the scope of its work. In cases where corruption is in the form of bribes to alter the normal course of government, increased transparency of government operations reduces the opportunity for undetected corruption e.g. clearly defined bidding processes, open judicial proceedings,
29、 strict rules on gift-giving and increasing the number of competitors reduces the potential gains while increasing scrutiny of bidding processes. Prosecution requires judicial independence and transparency. For the judicial system to exact penalties, it must have sufficient resources and independenc
30、e. To the extent that penalties are reputational, media independence is a crucial element to deterrence. While a more complete treatment would include the incentives of private sector agents who interact with public officials, policies affecting private sector incentives are largely outside the scop
31、e of Bank work. Policies which increase the magnitude of penalties or the expected probability of paying penalties, however, are likely to have similar effects on the private sector as they do on the public sector. The focus on public officials excludes consideration of policies, typically in countr
32、ies with low levels of corruption, that penalize private sector efforts to participate in corruption in other countries. These policies are potentially relevant to anti-corruption efforts, but are outside the scope of our framework and most Bank work. In terms of domestic policies, we believe that t
33、he focus on public officials is appropriate even if well-designed policies may reduce the incentives of the private sector to engage in corruption. The argument is that a goverunent which cannot influence the incentives of its own officials is unlikely to be able to reduce private sector incentives
34、to engage in corruption. In the formulation above, an officials income does not have an effect on whether or not to engage in corrupt activities. Two concerns have been raised with this approach. One is that officials paid less than subsistence income are forced to undertake corrupt activities to survive, the second is that, at some high level of income, officials should be unwilling to risk that
