Eye and Whip

This chapter explores the overlap between corruption and inefficiency. This chapter also evaluates the merits of different accountability mechanisms featured in the existing literature, such as: vertical and horizontal accountability, fire alarm and police patrol oversight, and bottom-up and top-down monitoring. Irrespective of the accountability mechanism that is ultimately preferred, it seems clear that those who wish to promote integrity in government must, first, have the means to uncover wrongdoing, and, second, be in a credible position to threaten wrongdoers with punishment. Stated simply, additional layers of oversight will only have the intended effect if government officials sense that abusing their power has some probability of resulting in punishment.