 Growth, governance and corruption in Bangladesh: a re-assessmentM Asadullah and N N Tarun Chakravorty Third World Quarterly, 2019, vol. 40, issue 5, 947-965 Abstract: This paper revisits Bangladesh’s ‘double paradox’ – sustained macroeconomic growth despite the poor state of governance and a high level of corruption – by critically reviewing trends in governance and corruption indicators during 1990–2017 vis-à-vis other South Asian countries. In addition, we draw upon data from a purposefully designed survey of manufacturing firms to assess the state of economic governance in the export-oriented ready-made garments (RMG) sector, the country’s main source of foreign exchange and driver of economic growth. Consistent with the country’s poor ranking in a host of indicators of investment climate and corruption perception, in-depth interviews of RMG factory owners confirm the high cost of doing business in various forms. We also find no evidence of growth-mediated improvements in indicators of governance. On the contrary, our review of print media reports suggests a growing governance deficit in the country’s financial sector. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the country’s future growth as well as performance of the RMG sector. Date: 2019 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:40:y:2019:i:5:p:947-965 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2019.1599854 Access Statistics for this article Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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