Abstract

In a new approach to measuring typically "subjective" variables, BEEPS (the 1999 Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey, the transition economies component of the World Business Environment Survey) quantitatively assesses governance from the perspective of about 3,000 firms in 20 countries. Unbundling the measurement of governance and corruption empirically suggests the importance of grand corruption in some countries, manifested in state capture by the corporate sector, through the "purchase" of decrees and legislation, and by graft in procurement.