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Featured researches published by Robert Klitgaard.


Public Administration and Development | 1997

Cleaning up and invigorating the civil service

Robert Klitgaard

Reliable quantitative estimates are not available of: (1) the quality of civil service performance and changes therein as the result of development projects, or (2) the importance of civil service performance for various development outcomes. Nonetheless, anecdotal evidence indicates that in some countries government performance has indeed collapsed, with calamitous effects on development. Although poor government performance is theoretically overdetermined—there are many possible causes, which we cannot disentangle in practice—a plausible story can be told based on institutional economics, using such concepts as information, incentives, and credible commitment. This version of both problems and solutions is supported by examples of successful reforms. The article argues that “institutional adjustment’ deserves more consideration as a basis for reforms. Two practical examples are discussed in some detail: improving incentives in the public sector and strategies to combat corruption.


Economic Development and Cultural Change | 1998

Economic Growth and Social Indicators: An Exploratory Analysis*

Johannes Fedderke; Robert Klitgaard

Abstract What are the connections between social and political conditions and economic growth? This paper explores the uses and misuses of statistical analysis of cross-national data in addressing this question. It shows that social, political and economic indicators are linked by “webs of association”. Such webs of association suggest the possibility of distinct groupings of social indicators with differentiated impacts on economic growth. But such correlations also make it difficult to disentangle causal relationships, especially when theorizing is weak, data are badly behaved, and the number of observations is small. Although under such conditions statistical techniques can help preclude premature generalizations, they are easily overinterpreted. Nonetheless, data analysis can help identify countries that seem exceptions to the general patterns, where careful case studies may be especially valuable.


Journal of Human Resources | 1975

Are There Unusually Effective Schools

Robert Klitgaard; George R. Hall

Abstract : The results of a statistical search for schools capable of increasing educational achievement are presented. No conclusive evidence of superior schools was found once non-school background factors were controlled. However, schools were located which appear deserving of further, more detailed study.


Journal of Policy Analysis and Management | 1983

Overcoming ethnic inequalities: Lessons from Malaysia

Robert Klitgaard; Ruth Katz

Beginning in 1971, Malaysia took unprecedented steps to improve the welfare of ethnic Malays vis-a-vis the countrys large Chinese minority. The programs included quotas in education, employment, and ownership, as well as a variety of subsidies, credit schemes, and political measures. The circumstances were favorable: The disadvantaged ethnic group was a majority and held the political reins, and soaring export prices generated much new growth to redistribute. But enormous efforts at “affirmative action” led to only marginal changes in the interethnic distribution of income. Malaysias new policies reduced racial inequalities less than one might have hoped, but they also had fewer bad effects on economic efficiency and political stability than one might have feared.


World Development | 1997

Unanticipated consequences in anti-poverty programs

Robert Klitgaard

Abstract Many anti-poverty programs have unanticipated consequences. A typology is provided, and one of its categories is illustrated with examples: insufficient attention to the economics of the institutions that implement anti-poverty programs. This in turn leads to practical suggestions for improving these institutions, especially through better information and incentives.


Archive | 1998

Healing Sick Institutions

Robert Klitgaard

A small body of evidence and a large body of assertion — both bodies growing — support the vague idea that ‘institutions matter for economic development’. This affirmation is intelligible first for what it negates. Many economists, in their models if not in their advice, bracket out institutions. Standard macroeconomic models, for example, do not include changes to property rights or improvements in contract law. In the limiting economic simplification of perfect markets and perfect information, there is no role for firms as institutions. As Joan Robinson once joked, the job of the manager of a firm is to look up in the book of blueprints the correct page corresponding to current (and future) factor markets. But new research asserts that institutions are both approachable in economic terms and important in their effects on efficiency and equity. What is the evidence? There are no exact studies, in part because there is no exact model. Indeed, exactly what ‘institutions’ might mean is vague and unclear, and in sober moments adherents admit that there is as yet no accepted paradigm. But useful statistical evidence does exist. As shown in other chapters in this volume, some cross-country studies show significant relationships between economic growth and a variety of variables that might be labelled institutional: ‘economic rights’ (in some studies and specifications, political rights as well), ‘contract-intensive money,’ corruption, and a number of sociocultural indicators.1


Technological Forecasting and Social Change | 1974

Measuring technological change: Comments on a proposed methodology

Robert Klitgaard

Abstract In their attempt to use multiple regression analysis to estimate the movement of a “technology trade-off surface” over time, Alexander and Nelson employed a methodology with wide and important potential applications. However, numerous difficulties attend such an effort. The choice and interpretation of the response variable in the regression equation is especially problematic. The date of introduction (as of a new turbine engine) is a function of many factors besides technological advance and therefore is not a valid index of that advance. (It may be an ordinal index; but then any monotonic transformation of the response variable is allowable, and regression coefficients change depending on the transformation.) Even when one has a valid cardinal index, there are statistical problems. First, there may be too few observations and too many regressor variables to do “curve fitting” with any confidence. Second, since the observations are in the past, the prediction interval that must be used in estimating future events is broader than the standard error of the regression equation, and it can be so broad as to lack policy relevance. These difficulties are discussed with regard to the Alexander-Nelson paper.


Development Southern Africa | 1994

Bribes, tribes and markets that fail: Rethinking the economics of underdevelopment

Robert Klitgaard

Conventional economic approaches to ‘underdevelopment’ tend to overlook some pernicious problems. Among them are corruption, ethnic discrimination and conflict, and markets that may work well enough for the privileged but not well enough for the poor. Fortunately, new work in economics promises practical insights into how to deal with these problems. It also suggests a rethinking of the causes of underdevelopment


Journal of Policy Analysis and Management | 1984

Role of government in a market economy

Robert Klitgaard; Lowell D. Hill

Ovim se clankom pokusava ukazati na neke smjernice koje mogu poslužiti kao ideja vodilja za definiranje primjerene uloge države u tržisnom gospodarstvu. Prvo se naznacuje koji su bili razlozi povecanja javne potrosnje u ovom stoljecu kada se bilježi izniman porast obujma države u gotovo svim zemljama bez obzira na politicko uređenje. To je potrebno spoznati kako bi se razotkrili razlozi pritisaka na porast obujma državnih funkcija. Spoznaja ovih pritisaka nužna je da bi se stvorila osnova za njihovo izbjegavanje u buducnosti. Zatim se pokusava odrediti koje funkcije država u tržisnim uvjetima trebala obavljati, dok se na kraju daje pregled kretanja obujma hrvatske države tijekom njezine transformacije u tržisno gospodarstvo i naznacuje smjer u kojem bi gospodarska politika trebala voditi daljnji razvoj države.


Policy Sciences | 1981

Regression without a model

Robert Klitgaard; Sadequa Dadabhoy; Simin Litkouhi

Frequently in public policy analysis, researchers and decisionmakers confront the problems of building, testing, and interpreting a regression equation. This paper examines these general problems in the context of the efficiency of secondary schools in Karachi, Pakistan. It displays some of the tools of exploratory data analysis in constructing a regression model in the absence of a convincing, a priori specification. A simple and useful technique is presented for testing, after numerous statistical explorations, the model one has constructed. Finally, the paper takes seriously the differences between the policymakers questions and the statisticians, providing some guidelines of general relevance for the interpretation of regression-based studies of public policy.

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Johannes Fedderke

Pennsylvania State University

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Johannes Fedderke

Pennsylvania State University

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