| Event Title: | ISAS Seminar |
| Topic: | Is Corruption Growth-Enhancing in Autocracies? |
| Date/Time: | 31 July 2018 | 15:00 - 06:14 |
| Venue: | Board Room, Institute of South Asian Studies |
| Speaker/s: | Dr Shrabani Saha |
| Description: | Corruption is a key aspect of most societies around the world, including that of South Asia. It has been regarded as a major bottleneck of growth and development for these societies. Over the years, there have been numerous policies and efforts put forth by various stakeholders to tackle this key problem. The beginning of the 1980s saw the introduction of greater empirical study and research on this topic. Economist Paolo Mauro’s work titled ‘Corruption and Growth’ published in 1995 can be regarded as the pioneer paper on the study of corruption and economic growth. In this paper, Mauro argues that corruption creates mostly negative impact on investments which are a major engine of economic growth. Dr Saha also highlighted other well-known studies that were carried out by scholars like Reinikka and Svensson in 2003 that explore other channels like human capital and misallocation of resources that have had negative impact on economic growth. She also emphasised that as corruption is a secretive activity, investments usually go to avenues that have lesser transparency in the government such as education and healthcare. In countries that have high rates of corruption, there are less investments in such areas and instead more investments in areas like infrastructure.
Dr Saha a highlighted two other major schools of thought that has been present in literature in explaining the positive and negative effects of corruption on growth and development. These two schools of thought have also been explored greatly in depth in her research analysis. |
| Youtube: | https://youtu.be/ZEh1Yp31EYg |