By Leopoldo Fergusson* and Juan Fernando Vargas** Having a free and active media is recognized as essential for political accountability. By providing information, mass media can help voters make better decisions and hold politicians accountable. Often, journalists also help uncover corruption scandals and undue influence of special interests groups. A famous example … [Read more...] about Sunlight disinfects, but beware of the shade!
Eight Friday links
This article defends payday lending, but is all the information disclosed? Can computers measure your happiness? Digital records of Victorian and Edwardian criminals … [Read more...] about Eight Friday links
Accountability and corruption
For a while I have been meaning to write a post on the impact of political institutions on corruption based on an interesting paper on municipal elections in Brazil. The paper shows that the reelection specter helps in disciplining corrupt politicians Mayors with reelection incentives misappropriate 27 percent fewer resources than mayors without reelection incentives. These … [Read more...] about Accountability and corruption
White elephants
John Kay’s column in the Financial Times is always an interesting read. In one of his last columns (ungated here) he pungently questioned the pertinence and value of Cost Benefit Analysis. His point: if the London sewerage system had been subject to present-day Cost Benefit rules it would never had been built. The Thames would still be a fetid cesspool and leisure walkers, … [Read more...] about White elephants
Opportunity costs
One of the things you first learn in economics is the concept of opportunity cost, and it is probably one of the things you forget fastest. So it is useful to have it explained in layman’s terms: … [Read more...] about Opportunity costs