BACKGROUND Four social audits in 1998, 2003, 2006 and 2009 identified actions that Nicaragua could take to reduce corruption and public perception in primary health care and other key services. METHODS In a 71-cluster sample, weighted according to the 1995 census and stratified by geographic region and settlement type, we audited the same five public services: health centres and health posts,...

A substantial number of recent studies have examined the relationship between poverty and corruption to clarify the ways in which these phenomena interact. An understanding of this complex relationship can inform USAID planning and programming in democracy and governance, as well as in poverty reduction strategies. Corruption in the public sector-the misuse of public office for private gain-is ...

Decentralization occupies an important space in debates over public-sector reform in doi moi Vietnam. This paper assesses the changing distribution of roles, responsibilities and resources across levels of government over the past decade. Vietnam is incrementally transfering greater administrative and fiscal responsibilities to the provincial level. In addition, the Communist Party is attemptin...

Corruption poses one of the major societal challenges of our time. Considerable advances have been made in understanding corruption on a macro level, yet the psychological antecedents of corrupt behavior remain largely unknown. In order to explain why some people engage in corruption while others do not, we explored the impact of descriptive social norms on corrupt behavior by using a novel beh...

This study investigates the impact of corruption on public and private investment in African countries as a way of exploring one channel through which corruption undermines growth. The empirical results indicate that corruption affects economic growth directly and through its impact on investment. We find that corruption has a negative and significant effect on domestic investment and that corr...

Background and Objectives: Corruption is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon emerging when people misuse their power for personal gain. The current study aimed to delve into the causes of corruption in hospitals and anti-corruption preventive measures. Methods: In this review study, national and international databases were searched using the keywords “corruption”, “health” and “hospital” an...

Corruption has become an issue of major political and economic relevance in recent years. This has led to a resurgence of interest in analyzing the phenomenon and the diverse forms that it assumes in developing politics with an expectation that democratization and economic liberation offer potential routes to dealing with the problem. Anti-corruption strategies range from institutional reforms ...

In just a few months in early 1997, Mexico fired its top drug-enforcement official for accepting bribes and ultimately closed the agency because it was so ridden with corruption; Ukraine’s president once again declared war on corruption; Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng lamented that his country was losing ground in its war on corruption; President Kim Young Sam deplored endemic corruption in Sou...