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Discussion Paper Details

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Title: Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives and the Resource Curse

Author(s): Georgy Egorov, Sergei Guriev and Konstantin Sonin

Publication Date: July 2006

Keyword(s): bureaucracy, media freedom, non-democratic politics and resource curse

Programme Area(s): Institutions and Economic Performance

Abstract: How can a non-democratic ruler provide proper incentives for state bureaucracy? In the absence of competitive elections and separation of powers, the ruler has to be well-informed himself, and to gather information he may use either a secret service or the media. The danger of using a secret service is that it can collude with bureaucrats; overcoming collusion is costly. Free media aggregate information and thus constrain bureaucrats, but also help citizens to coordinate on actions against the incumbent. We endogenize the ruler's choice in a dynamic model to argue that free media are less likely to emerge in resource-rich economies where the ruler is less interested in providing incentives to his subordinates. We show that this prediction is consistent with both cross-section and panel data.

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Bibliographic Reference

Egorov, G, Guriev, S and Sonin, K. 2006. 'Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives and the Resource Curse'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=5748