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116 Fighting the Diseases of Poverty
strategy with strong political backing and a willingness to take a
position and follow through. Indeed, it may well require a government-wide
anti-corruption agenda, as Poland has undertaken. Even
there it isn’t enough to remove informal charges as the studies discussed
here indicate. Making clean government a priority allows
irregularities to be identified and addressed, which bolsters efforts
in the sector to put in place effective oversight and detection, and
endorses disciplining corrupt practices once detected. Without the
willingness to act on identified corruption countries are unlikely to
be able to control such practices.
Highersalariesforpublicsectorworkersarefrequentlyproposed
as a way to curb corruption, but the evidence is complicated and not
straightforward. Moreover, as discussed above, there may be better
means of compensating health professionals. In a study of the effect
of civil service pay on corruption using cross-country regression and
controlling for a wide array of factors, showed that wage levels could
affect corruption but must rise dramatically to seriously reduce
corrupt behavior (Van Rijkeghem and Weder, 2001). Although challenged
on their corruption measures, Rauch and Evans (2000) find no
effect on corruption of higher public sector wages, and instead
propose that employment security, recruitment and promotion
criteria, and management are of greater importance than salary
increases. A study in Venezuela found a perverse effect with higher
wages correlating with more corruption. Jaen and Paravinski (2001)
interpret this as corrupt wage earners capturing wage setting
througheitherinfluenceorbribes.Insum,despitetheviewthatsalary
adjustments will solve corruption the evidence suggests that while
wage levels may play a role in controlling corruption it is not guaranteed
and other changes need to accompany higher earnings.
An issue is whether the necessary increases required to eradicate
corruption are affordable and realistic for most low income countries.
Some increases may be warranted but it would also mean staff
reductions to accommodate higher pay. These are considerations
that should accompany civil service reform plans meant to raise
salaries and curb corruption.