This paper examines corruption in Moldova, analyzing its impact on economic growth and progress in implementing earlier IMF recommendations on anti-corruption and anti-money laundering (AML). Despite solid legal frameworks, corruption remains a significant challenge, impeding growth and EU convergence. Drawing from regional successes, the paper stresses the importance of specialized anti-corruption agencies, robust prosecution, civil society involvement, and international expertise. Moldova has made strides in strengthening its legal and institutional infrastructure, but challenges like delayed corruption case adjudication persist. Recommendations include enhancing the Anti-corruption Prosecution Office's investigative capacity and establishing specialized adjudication infrastructure.

The recently-adopted OECD convention outlawing bribery of foreign public officials is welcome evidence of how much progress has been made in the battle against corruption. The financial crisis in East Asia is an indication of how much remains to be done. Corruption is by no means a new issue but it has only recently emerged as a global issue. With the end of the Cold War, the pace and breadth of the trends toward democratization and international economic integration accelerated and expanded globally. Yet corruption could slow or even reverse these trends, potentially threatening economic development and political stability in some countries. As the global implications of corruption have grown, so has the impetus for international action to combat it. In addition to efforts in the OECD, the Organization of American States, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations General Assembly, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have both begun to emphasize corruption as an impediment to economic development. This book includes a chapter by the Chairman of the OECD Working Group on Bribery discussing the evolution of the OECD convention and what is needed to make it effective. Other chapters address the causes and consequences of corruption, including the impact on investment and growth and the role of multinational corporations in discouraging bribery. The final chapter summarizes and also discusses some of the other anticorruption initiatives that either have been or should be adopted by governments, multilateral development banks, and other international organizations.

This paper demonstrates that high and rising corruption increases income inequality and poverty by reducing economic growth, the progressivity of the tax system, the level and effectiveness of social spending, and the formation of human capital, and by perpetuating an unequal distribution of asset ownership and unequal access to education. These findings hold for countries with different growth experiences, at different stages of development, and using various indices of corruption. An important implication of these results is that policies that reduce corruption will also lower income inequality and poverty.

This book presents new data to give an overview of shadow economies from OECD countries and propose solutions to prevent illicit work.

Republic of Moldova: Selected Issues

Corruption... How can policymakers and practitioners better comprehend the many forms and shapes that this socialpandemic takes? From the delivery of essential drugs, the reduction in teacher absenteeism, the containment of illegal logging, the construction of roads, the provision of water andelectricity, the international trade in oil and gas, the conduct of public budgeting and procurement, and the management of public revenues, corruption shows its many faces. 'The Many Faces of Corruption' attempts to bring greater clarity to the often murky manifestations of this virulent and debilitating social disease. It explores the use of prototype road maps to identify corruption vulnerabilities, suggests corresponding 'warning signals,' and proposes operationally useful remedial measures in each of several selected sectors and for a selected sampleof cross cutting public sector functions that are particularlyprone to corruption and that are critical to sector performance.Numerous technical experts have come together in this effort to develop an operationally useful approach to diagnosing and tackling corruption. 'The Many Faces of Corruption' is an invaluable reference for policymakers, practitioners, andresearchers engaged in the business of development.

Moldova is a landlocked country situated in Eastern Europe, bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The country has a population of around 2.6 million people and covers an area of 33,846 km². The capital and largest city is Chișinău, which is home to around 700,000 people. The official language of Moldova is Romanian, and the country has a rich cultural heritage, with influences from Romanian, Russian, and Ukrainian cultures. Its economy is mainly based on agriculture, with wine production being a significant industry. Moldova is also known for its stunning natural beauty, including the Dniester River and the Codru Forest, which provide outdoor recreation opportunities for residents and tourists alike. Despite its natural beauty and rich heritage, Moldova faces significant challenges related to corruption, political instability, and economic development.

This paper discusses the possible causes and consequences of corruption. It provides a synthetic review of recent studies that analyze this phenomenon empirically. In addition, it presents further results on the effects of corruption on growth and investment, and new cross-country evidence on the link between corruption and the composition of government expenditure.

There is extraordinary variation in how governments treat multinational corporations in emerging economies; in fact, governments around the world have nationalized or eaten away at the value of foreign-owned property in violation of international treaties. This even occurs in poor countries, where governments are expected to, at a minimum, respect the contracts they make with foreign firms lest foreign capital flee. In The Shield of Nationality, Rachel Wellhausen introduces foreign-firm nationality as a key determinant of firms' responses to government breaches of contract. Firms of the same nationality are likely to see a compatriot's broken contract as a forewarning of their own problems, leading them to take flight or fight. In contrast, firms of other nationalities are likely to meet the broken contract with apparent indifference. Evidence includes quantitative analysis and case studies that draw on field research in Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania.

Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.