Cómo se vuelven ricos los países (y cómo lo hacen los políticos)

En una entrevista de Foreign Policy, Michael Spence, autor de un tratado sobre crecimiento y desarrollo, responde sobre la relación entre la corrupción y el crecimiento:

FP: What’s your view on corruption as a drag on development? Countries like India, China, Indonesia, and South Korea have major problems with corruption, and yet they’ve been able to grow fairly successfully.

MS: I think it depends on the kind of corruption. This is an active subject of research, so we’re learning all the time. I would say really small-scale corruption is not necessarily a good thing, but it’s a little bit like a tax. If it gets out of hand and turns into big delays in things like establishing businesses or getting approvals for investment projects, it can be a problem. The really destructive kind of corruption, I would describe as wholesale theft on a large scale, where governments are really living on taking the national resources and using them to buy votes and stay in power. That seems to be completely destructive of the sustained growth and policies that are needed to support it.