Governments perform better where there is more general trust and strong civic norms; they perform less well where citizens are less trusting and less civic-minded.

One strand of research argues that polarized societies find it difficult to reach political consensus on appropriate responses to crises. Another strand focuses on redistribution, asking whether income inequality stifles growth by increasing political incentives to redistribute. Which is right?

Do higher levels of aid erode the very quality of governance poor countries need for sustained and rapid income growth?

Or has evidence that government corruption is less severe in small countries been an artifact of sample selection?

"This paper assesses corruption levels and trends among countries in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) based on data from several sources that are both widely used and cover most or all countries in the region. Data from firm surveys tend to show improvement in most types of administrative corruption, but little change in "state capture" in the region. Broader, subjective corruption indicators tend to show somewhat greater improvement in ECA than in non-ECA countries on average. A "primer on corruption indicators" discusses definitional and methodological differences among data sources that may account in large part for the apparently conflicting messages they often provide. This discussion concludes that depending on one's purpose, it may be more appropriate to use data from a single source rather than a composite index because of the loss of conceptual precision in aggregation. A second conclusion is that the gains in statistical precision from aggregating sources of corruption data likely are far more modest than often claimed because of interdependence among data sources. The range of detailed corruption measures available in firm surveys are exploited to show that broad, perceptions-based corruption assessments appear to measure primarily administrative corruption, despite their stated criteria placing great weight on "state capture." Finally, the paper emphasizes the need for scaling up data initiatives to fill significant gaps between our conceptual definitions of corruption and the operational definition embodied in the existing measures."--World Bank web site.

By analyzing inter-household and community networks in Romania, this title looks at social capital effects on the poor in transition countries.

"Market-oriented economic policies-reflected in limited economic activity by government, protection of private property rights, sound monetary policy, outward orientation regarding trade and efficient tax and regulatory policy-have been strongly linked to faster rates of economic growth. Foreign aid is often provided in the belief that it encourages liberalizing reforms in these areas. This paper analyzes the impact of aid on market-liberalizing policy reform, correcting for the possible endogeneity of aid. Results indicate that higher aid slowed reform over the 1980-2000 period, as measured by a broad index of policies. Disaggregating policy into five areas, aid is significantly linked to slower reform in some policy areas but not in others. Disaggregating by decade, aid's adverse impact on policy reform is much more pronounced for the 1980s than for the 1990s. "--Cover verso.