Corruption and the Management of Public Works in Italy1

Corruption in Italian public works construction has been persistent and widespread for many decades. Using a novel measure of corruption, we document the range of corruption affecting public works across Italian regions. We argue that the nature and extent of corruption characterizing Italian regions in the postwar era could not have occurred except as part of a larger pattern of nationally-orchestrated political corruption. We present separate evidence of the spread and incidence of political corruption and show that it is significantly associated with corruption in public works construction. Finally, we attempt to assess whether corruption in Italy declined following extensive judicial investigations in the first half of the 1990s, after which new legislation aimed at cleaning up public contracting was adopted. 3 Acknowledgements Miriam Golden acknowledges the support of the Russell Sage Foundation and of the National Science Foundation (SES-0074860) for collection of some of the data reported here, as well as the support of the Academic Senate of the University of California at Los Angeles. Fo