Determinants of the Amount and Type of Corruption in State Fiscal Bureaucracies
- 1 October 1992
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Comparative Political Studies
- Vol. 25 (3) , 300-331
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414092025003002
Abstract
A principal-agent model of relations between rulers and state officials is used to derive several propositions concerning the amount and type of corruption in state bureaucracies. The model is applied to the fiscal bureaucracies of Ming and Qing China, focusing on how problems rulers faced measuring taxable assets and monitoring and sanctioning state tax collectors resulted in a high level of corruption. Attempts by Ming and Qing rulers to reform their fiscal systems are analyzed, and the causes of the general failure of these reforms and of regional variations in reform success are discussed.Keywords
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