Measuring the increase in corruption over two centuries

Ben Muse has an excellent piece on changes in the extent of government corruption over the past two centuries, summarizing the works by Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff, and by Glaeser and Goldin.

Engerman and Sokoloff look at cost overruns for nearly two centuries and find that the ratio of actual to budgeted costs for government projects increased dramatically after WWII; they attribute a portion of the increase in cost overruns to corruption. Glaeser and Goldin examine key words in news articles and conclude that corruption has declined in the 20th century. It's hard to tell who is correct, but I lean toward Engerman and Sokoloff.

Read the entire posting for links to the original pieces.