Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/76612 
Year of Publication: 
2004
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 1173
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Which of the democratic checks and balances - opposition parties, the judiciary, a free press -is the most critical? Peru has the full set of democratic institutions. In the 1990s, the secret-police chief Vladimiro Montesinos systematically undermined them all with bribes. We quantify the checks using the bribe prices. Montesinos paid television-channel owners about 100 times what he paid judges and politicians. One single television channel's bribe was four times larger than the total of the opposition politicians' bribes. By revealed preference, the strongest check on the government's power was the news media.
Document Type: 
Working Paper
Appears in Collections:

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.