aligica & tarko - crony capitalism
DESCRIPTION
presentation at APEE 2013 in Maui, HawaiiTRANSCRIPT
Crony Capitalism:Rent-Seeking, Institutions, and Ideology
Dragos Paul AligicaVlad Tarko
George Mason University, Mercatus Center
Association of Private Enterprise Education 2013
Outline
• What is “crony capitalism”?• Microeconomic foundations: Rent-
seeking– Cronyism restricts rent-seeking competition
• Structural perspective: Cronyism with and without the rule of law– Corruption and the shadow economy– Cronyism and property rights
• Ideological perspective– Populism
“Crony” relations
• Management literature–Nepotism in hiring and promotion
decisions
• Two types of corruption– Cronyism– Bribery
Crony capitalism: Developing countries
• South America, India, South Korea, South-East Asia, and Eastern Europe
• Haber (2002):– “a system in which those close to the political
authorities who make and enforce policies receive favors that have large economic value”
– “The favors allow politically connected economic agents to earn returns above those that would prevail in an economy in which the factors of production were priced by the market”
Crony capitalism: tendency in developed countries
• United States (Zingales 2012)• “the government rigs the market for
the benefit of government officials’ cronies” (Henderson, 2012).
Differences between developed and developing countries
High-income Developing
CorruptionComplements
official economyComplements
shadow economy
Property rights
secured by...
Rule of law & Judicial System
Crony relations: involves trust and family relations
Beyond ideology?
• Buchanan (1992):– The “loss of faith in politics” has not been
“accompanied by any demonstrable renewal or reconversion to a faith in markets”.
– “We are left, therefore, with what is essentially an attitude of nihilism toward economic organization. Politics will not work, but there is no generalized willingness to leave things alone. There seems to be no widely shared organizing principle upon which persons can begin to think about the operations of a political economy.”
Populism
• Canovan (1999) :– “Populism is not just a reaction against power
structures but an appeal to a recognized authority. Populists claim legitimacy on the grounds that they speak for the people … Capitalizing on popular distrust of politicians’ evasiveness and bureaucratic jargon, they pride themselves on simplicity and directness.”
• Dornbusch & Edwards (1992):– “emphasizes growth and income redistribution and
deemphasizes the risks of inflation and deficit finance, external constraints, and the reaction of economic agents to aggressive nonmarket policies”
Ideological justifications and legitimizations
Rent-seeking
societies
Legitimizing
Ideology
Mercantilism Religion
Real-life socialism Socialism
State capitalism Nationalism
Crony capitalism Populism
Crony capitalism
• Rent-seeking society legitimized by populism.
• Crony relations work to restrict the competition for rent-seeking, thus increasing the size of rents.
• In countries with low rule of law and dysfunctional judicial system, crony relations are the second-best solution for protecting property rights (of some, not of all).