1、ECONOMIC GANGSTERSECONOMIC GANGSTERSCorruption, Violence, and the Poverty of NationsRaymond Fisman and Edward MiguelPRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESSPRINCETON AND OXFORDCopyright 2008 by Princeton University PressRequests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Pr
2、inceton University PressPublished by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TWAll Rights ReservedLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataFisman, Raymond.Econo
3、mic gangsters : corruption, violence, and the poverty of nations / Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel.p. cm.Includes index.ISBN 978-0-691-13454-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. CorruptionEconomic aspects. 2. Political corruptionEconomic aspects. 3. Smuggling. I. Miguel, Edward. II. Title.HV6768.F57 20083
4、64.1323dc222008025208British Library Cata loging- in- Publication Data is availableThis book has been composed in GoudyPrinted on acid- free paper. press.princeton.eduPrinted in the United States of America1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2For EllieFor AliContentsChapter OneFighting For Economic Development 1Chap
5、ter TwoSuharto, Inc. 22Chapter ThreeThe Smuggling Gap 53Chapter FourNature or Nurture? Understanding the Culture of Corruption 76Chapter FiveNo Water, No Peace 111Chapter SixDeath by a Thousand Small Cuts 136Chapter SevenThe Road Back From War 159Chapter EightLearning to Fight Economic Gangsters 186
6、EpilogueDoing Better This Time 207Ac know ledg ments 211Notes 215Index 235ECONOMIC GANGSTERSChapter OneFighting for Economic DevelopmentIn the summer of 2004, world- renowned Kenyan novelist Ngugi Wa Thiongo returned to his homeland after twenty- two years in exile. He fl ew to Nairobi to launch his
7、 new novel, Wizard of the Crow, his fi rst in over a de cade. Ngugis earlier worksa dozen or so novels and collections of sto-ries, which he began publishing just after Kenyan in de pen-dence in 1963had been wildly successful, not only in Kenya but throughout the world. Through his carefully wrought
8、 characters and achingly familiar plots of loss and suffering, Ngugi captured the bewildering contradictions left behind in the wake of Eu ro pe an colonialism.Ngugi had lived those contradictions and drew inspira-tion from his experiences, which were shared by so many of his fellow Kenyans. Ngugi h
9、ad grown up during the 1950s, when Kenya had been rocked by the Mau Mau rebellion against its British colonizers. He had witnessed the murder CHAPTER ONE2of his brother, who had died along with thousands of other Kenyans in opposing the British. And he had celebrated with his countrymen as they watc
10、hed the British imperial machinery retreat in 1963 at the birth of the Kenyan nation. He had also suffered at the hands of the second free Kenyan governmentfor despite the countrys turn to self-rule and hopes for a bright future, Ngugi had been forced to fl ee Kenya in the 1980s following years of p
11、ersecution and impris-onment for his sharp criticism of the post- in de pen dence regime.Novels like A Grain of Wheat, published in 1967, just four years after Jomo Kenyatta became in de pen dent Kenyas fi r s t p r e s i d e n t , provided a window into the hopes and frus-trations that came with th
12、e dismantling of the Western empiresdreams of economic prosperity mea sured against tales of corruption seeded throughout the new government. A Grain of Wheat is a fable about the early, tumultuous years of a free Kenya, and captures the unwavering hope for a bright future coupled with the fear of w
13、hat the British legacy of corruption and violence might bring. “Would in de pen-dence bring the land into African hands? And would that make a difference to the small man in the village?” asks Ngugi through the novels main character, Gikonyo.1In the 1950s and 1960s, that same question echoed in the
14、minds of the citizens of newly in de pen dent countries from Kenya and Sierra Leone to Indonesia and Pakistan. What would the future hold? Would freedom bring jobs, peace, and wealth? The sentiment that drove these concerns would help make Ngugis novels international sensations; theyve been translat
15、ed into more than thirty languages and are considered classics of African literature. For Ngugi him-self, the post- in de pen dence years spent in exile had brought FIGHTING FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT3professional acclaim and prosperity. He had taught at New York University as the Erich Maria Remarque
16、 Professor of Lan-guages and is now a professor at the University of California at Irvine, where he directs the Center for Writing and Transla-tion. And he returned to Kenya in 2004 not with bitterness about the past but with optimism for the future. “I come back with an open mind, an open heart and
17、 open arms. I have come to touch base. I have come to learn,” he told the crowds of well- wishers upon landing in Nairobi.2But even in the face of the enthusiasm, hope, and joy that greeted his returna visit that came not long after Ken-yas longtime dictator Daniel arap Moi, his longtime perse-cutor
18、, had stepped down to make way for a demo cratically elected governmentNgugi was brutally assaulted in his rented Nairobi apartment, beaten, his face burned with ciga-rettes; his wife, Njeeri, was raped. Many interpreted the at-tack as payback from the earlier regime for Ngugis outspoken criticism o
19、f Kenyan politicians and politics, and served as yet another reminder of the despair and unfulfi lled aspirations of Kenyas people. The parallels were made even more poi-gnant by the widespread political violence in Kenya in early 2008.3This isnt the way it was supposed to be.Over the past four de c
20、ades, weve witnessed some of the greatest economic miracles in human history. In 1963, an average person in South Korea or Kenya earned only a few hundred dollars a year. Most eked out a living as peasant farmers. Back then, it wasnt so clear where youd lay your bets if you had to guess which countr
21、y would be rich at the CHAPTER ONE4end of the millennium. Both countries were recovering from the devastating armed confl icts that had accompanied de-colonization. South Korea had already boosted its literacy rates by the early 1960s, but Kenya had much greater natural resource wealth to exploit, i
22、ncluding some of the worlds richest soil for growing coffee, cotton, and tea.After de cades of fi rst manufacturing textiles, then refi n-ing steel, and fi nally producing high- end consumer goods and advanced electronics, South Korea pulled off an eco-nomic leapfrog that today puts it among the wor
23、lds wealthy nations. South Korean citizens now enjoy a standard of liv-ing rivaling the Japa nese, their former colonizers, and that of many Eu ro pe an nations. But the average Kenyan is no better off today than he was in 1963.What went wrong? In looking back over four de cades of history, what can
24、 we learn of why South Koreaand Malay-sia and Thailand and now Chinabegan to close the in-come gap with Eu rope and North America, while Bangladesh, Pakistan, Central America, and most of sub- Saharan Africa remain mired in extreme poverty?This is the puzzle that gets the two of us out of bed and in
25、to the offi ce each morning, and solving it is the ultimate purpose of the research that well share with you. This book isnt about fi nding the singular explanation for why poor countries are poor. You should probably be suspicious of anyone selling you a grand unifi ed theory of poverty (or anythin
26、g else). Human societies are far too complicated for that.But neither do we subscribe to the view that no one can make progress on such a vexing problem. Many hard lessons have been learned since 1963. The experiences of newly in-de pen dent Kenyansthe fruits of their hard labor lost to FIGHTING FOR
27、 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT5corruption or destroyed by violenceforeshadow the twin evils of corruption and violence that have been so central to Kenyas modern economic experience as to be inseparable from it. As well see, Kenyas story is far from unique: from the post- colonial plundering in Indonesia to
28、the bloody civil wars of Central America and Africa, the destructive power of corruption and violence is clear for all to see.The Lives and Times of Economic GangstersAl Capone is remembered as a gangster and a brutal, cold- blooded killer. It is perhaps less widely known that Capone was also an acc
29、ountant for a Baltimore construction fi rm before joining and eventually leading Chicagos North Side Gang.4We dont normally associate the relatively humble and perhaps humdrum vocation of bookkeeping with mob icons like Capone. There are no scenes of Al Pacino strug-gling to balance the books or por
30、ing over fi nancial state-ments in the fi lms Scarface or The Godfather. But Capones training as an accountant was instrumental in helping him or ga nize a vast criminal business empire. The emphasis was on businessits just that Capones business happened to be in prostitution, gambling, racketeering
31、, and selling booze during Prohibition, illicit trades where disputes were settled with machine guns rather than lawyers.According to biographer Robert Schoenberg, Capone was “a businessman of crime with lucid, rational, and discover-able reasons for his actions.”5He is the quintessential eco-nomic
32、gangster: a violent and lawless criminal who wrought havoc on 1920s Chicago, but did so in a rational, calculating way.6A cold- blooded killer, yes, but violence was simply a tool Capone used to keep the money rolling in.CHAPTER ONE6The pathological cruelty of gangsters like Capone makes them partic
33、ularly repellanttheyre guilty of crimes of cal-culation, never passionbut also the source of endless fasci-nation. Yet their narrow self- interest, driven by money and power, makes them more understandable to economists, not less. Its not that we economists do not realize how impor-tant emotions can
34、 be in governing behavior (we are in fact people too). But the side to human behavior that economists choose to study is embodied in the species Homo economicus, or Economic mana rational, self- serving being whose ac-tions and choices are based on logical decisions, not rash im-pulses. If the crimi
35、nal mind, like Capones, really is very close to the self- serving ideal in our models, then economic analysis can be a useful tool in fi guring out how to combat corruption and other forms of lawbreaking.Theres good reason to believe that the characters that populate this bookfrom the despotic warlo
36、rds of sub- Saharan Africa to the smugglers of the South China Seado indeed obey the logical laws of economics. To understand why, its useful to think about what keeps you from cheating a little on your taxes, or slipping out of a restaurant without paying the bill. Its in part a fear of the legal c
37、onsequences if you get caught. But the punishment of tax cheats is rare and usually light, and you could stiff a waiter his tip without risking any legal penalties (although you may not be wel-come back at that par tic u lar restaurant). Yet most people still do the right thing most of the time. Pro
38、bably more than fi nes or jail time, what constrains us from breaking the law is the fact that it just isnt right. Were constrained by conscience.But antisocial personalities like Capone were blessed with relatively few such encumbrances. So if anyone is going FIGHTING FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT7to be
39、have in their narrowest self- interestby cheating on taxes or restaurant bills, or even killing off business rivals to earn a few dollars morewe would expect it to be a criminal character unconstrained by scruples, what we call the “eco-nomic gangster.” And as well see, theres a bit of economic gang
40、ster in each of us. When placed in desperate circum-stances all people are reduced to the rational calculus of survival, with conscience a forgone luxury.The goal of this book, and the research its based on, is to understand the havoc wrought by the corruption and violence of the worlds economic gan
41、gsters, and to place their impacts on economic development in sharper relief. (To appreciate the problem, imagine what life would be like under Mayor Capone of Chicago or even President Capone. Unfortunately, many people in the developing world dont need to use their imagina-tions to grasp what it m
42、eans to be ruled by thuggish bandits.)While we certainly dont have all the answers, in our research odyssey to make sense of corruption and violence over the past de cade, we have uncovered some amazing factsand surprising solutions.We are researchers and professors in development eco-nomics at U.S.
43、 academic institutions (Ray at the Columbia Business School and Ted at the University of California, Berkeley). But our research forces us out of the ivory tower to get a closer look at the real world. Our economic detective work has taken us from remote Kenyan villages to the fl oor of the Indonesi
44、an stock exchange for new angles on the sources of global poverty. Unexpected answers about corrup-tion and violence are found in the most unlikely of places: in tales of smuggled Chinese chickens, diplomatic parking tick-ets in Manhattan, and even Tanzanian witch- hunts.This book brings together th
45、e lessons weve learned by CHAPTER ONE8marrying economic analysis with the insights gained in our expeditions through the rural back roads and glittery new skyscrapers of the developing world. We hope these lessons can, in some small way, help Kenyans and the rest of the developing world fi nally rea
46、lize the economic aspirations they hold for themselves and their children.Its not an overstatement to say that the question that we confronthow best to fi ght global povertyis of epochal importance. The well- being of most human beings is at stake. Recent World Bank calculations estimate that a bil-
47、lion people live on less than one dollar a day, while half the worlds populationabout three billiongets by on a daily income of less than two dollars.7How do people survive on so little? The answer is bru-tally simple: not well. Hunger plagues daily life for hundreds of millions, and health care is
48、scarce or non ex is tent. In war- torn Chad, Niger, and Sierra Leone, adult literacy rates still hover under 30 percent, and children have a better chance of dying before age one than they have of graduating from high school.Global poverty matters a lot even to those Americans (and other privileged
49、citizens of the Western world) who generally have little regard for what goes on beyond their own borderseven if they arent conscious of it. As well see repeatedly throughout this book, were all stuck with one another on this planet. Poverty breeds desperation and dis-content: we wake up daily to headlines of terrorist threats, environmental degradation, and other global ills that fi nd their origins in Middle Eastern slums and the rainforest clear- cuts scarring the Congo River basin. Tackling the probl
