The Optimal Combination of Corruption Reforms: Is a Comprehensive Approach a Good Idea?

Itoh for the constructive comments in the early stage of this paper. I also thank participants in the workshop at Boston University, the seminars at Nagasaki, Kyoto and Osaka, and the NEUDC conference at Harvard University. All remaining errors, of course, are my own responsibility. Abstract Earlier work on corruption reform often argues that a broad set of reforms should be simultaneously implemented in many different sectors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the validity of this argument by examining the complementarity or substitutability of anticorruption reforms in different sectors. The model rationalizes some frequently discussed interaction effects, and identifies some new interaction effects. These imply that in certain countries, it will be optimal to implement administrative reform alone; in other countries, it will be optimal to combine all reforms.