Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives, and the Resource Curse

Sergei Guriev, G. Egorov and Konstantin Sonin

Voprosy Ekonomiki, 2007, issue 4

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 gather information either from a centralized agency such as a secret service or a decentralized source such as 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 might 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.

Date: 2007
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Related works:
Working Paper: Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives, and the Resource Curse (2006)
Working Paper: Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives and the Resource Curse (2006)
Working Paper: Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives, and the Resource Curse (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nos:voprec:y:2007:id:1587

DOI: 10.32609/0042-8736-2007-4-4-24

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