BOOK REVIEWS
Abstract
Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History EDITED BY EDWARD L. GLAESER AND CLAUDIA GOLDIN Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006 Pp. viii + 386, $75.00 (hbk), ISBN 0 2262 9957 0 This volume, which is an outgrowth of a conference sponsored by the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, seeks to identify the secret of the United States' success in containing corruption. Though corruption was endemic in the nineteenth century, the United States, notwithstanding the recent spate of high-profile cases, now ranks in the lowest 10% worldwide. How was this achieved? Written by leading economic historians, the essays in the volume cover a wide range of topics: the concept of “systematic corruption;” the construction of the Erie Canal; the introduction of free-banking in antebellum New York; the relationship between corporate governance and minority shareholder rights; the growth of an independent fourth estate; problems associated with corruption in the development and regulations of cities in the late nineteenth century (examined in a number of essays); and the largely successful effort to stamp out corruption in New Deal programs. As is often the case in such edited works, the volume, though admirable in breadth, lacks cohesion.