Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History

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Edward L. Glaeser, Claudia Goldin
University of Chicago Press, 1 nov 2007 - 396 páginas
Despite recent corporate scandals, the United States is among the world’s least corrupt nations. But in the nineteenth century, the degree of fraud and corruption in America approached that of today’s most corrupt developing nations, as municipal governments and robber barons alike found new ways to steal from taxpayers and swindle investors. In Corruption and Reform, contributors explore this shadowy period of United States history in search of better methods to fight corruption worldwide today.

Contributors to this volume address the measurement and consequences of fraud and corruption and the forces that ultimately led to their decline within the United States. They show that various approaches to reducing corruption have met with success, such as deregulation, particularly “free banking,” in the 1830s. In the 1930s, corruption was kept in check when new federal bureaucracies replaced local administrations in doling out relief. Another deterrent to corruption was the independent press, which kept a watchful eye over government and business. These and other facets of American history analyzed in this volume make it indispensable as background for anyone interested in corruption today.

Dentro del libro

Índice

II Consequences of Corruption
123
III The Road to Reform
185
IV Reform and Regulation
283
Contributors
373
Author Index
375
Subject Index
381
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Página 35 - Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery ! Our chains are forged ; their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace; but there is no peace.
Página 46 - In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful...
Página 35 - We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the Ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne.
Página 144 - ... or such a fraudulent transaction completed or contemplated by the acting managers In connection with some other party, or among themselves, or with other shareholders, as will result in serious injury to the corporation, or to the interests of the other...
Página 46 - Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and...
Página 187 - Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament ; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying ; it is a literal fact,— very momentous to us in these times.
Página v - Relation of the Directors to the Work and Publications of the National Bureau of Economic Research 1 . The object of the National Bureau of Economic Research is to ascertain and to present to the public important economic facts and their interpretation in a scientific and impartial manner.
Página 187 - Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. Writing brings Printing; brings universal every-day extempore Printing, as we see at present. Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority.
Página 36 - The powers of the government of this state are divided into three distinct departments — the legislative, executive and judicial— and no person, or collection of persons...
Página 46 - ... prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy.

Sobre el autor (2007)

Edward L. Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University and director of the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government. He is a research associate at the NBER and the editor of the recent NBER volume The Governance of Not-for-Profit Organizations. Claudia Goldin is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University and director of the Development of the American Economy Program and research associate at the NBER. She is the coeditor of three previous NBER volumes including, most recently, The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century.

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