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Despite recent corporate scandals, the United States is among the world’s least corrupt nations. But in the nineteenth century, the degree of fraud and corruption in America approached that of today’s most corrupt developing nations, as municipal governments and robber barons alike found new ways to steal from taxpayers and swindle investors. In Corruption and Reform, contributors explore this shadowy period of United States history in search of better methods to fight corruption worldwide today.

Contributors to this volume address the measurement and consequences of fraud and corruption and the forces that ultimately led to their decline within the United States. They show that various approaches to reducing corruption have met with success, such as deregulation, particularly “free banking,” in the 1830s. In the 1930s, corruption was kept in check when new federal bureaucracies replaced local administrations in doling out relief. Another deterrent to corruption was the independent press, which kept a watchful eye over government and business. These and other facets of American history analyzed in this volume make it indispensable as background for anyone interested in corruption today.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

I. Corruption and Reform: Definitions and Historical Trends

Corruption and Reform: Introduction

Edward L. Glaeser and Claudia Goldin

1. The Concept of Systematic Corruption in American History

John Joseph Wallis

2. Limiting the Reach of the Grabbing Hand: Graft and Growth in American Cities, 1880 to 1930

Rebecca Menes

3. Digging the Dirt at Public Expense: Governance in the Building of the Erie Canal and Other Public Works

Stanley L. Engerman and Kenneth L. Sokoloff

II. Consequences of Corruption

4. Corporate Governance and the Plight of Minority Shareholders in the United States before the Great Depression

Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

5. Water, Water Everywhere: Municipal Finance and Water Supply in American Cities

David Cutler and Grant Miller

III. The Road to Reform

6. The Rise of the Fourth Estate: How Newspapers Became Informative and Why It Mattered

Matthew Gentzkow, Edward L. Glaeser, and Claudia Goldin

7. Bank Chartering and Political Corruption in Antebellum New York: Free Banking as Reform

Howard Bodenhorn

8. Regime Change and Corruption: A History of Public Utility Regulation

Werner Troesken

IV. Reform and Regulation

9. The Irony of Reform: Did Large Employers Subvert Workplace Safety Reform, 1869 to 1930?

Price V. Fishback

10. The Determinants of Progressive Era Reform: The Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906

Marc T. Law and Gary D. Libecap

11. Politics, Relief, and Reform: Roosevelt's Efforts to Control Corruption and Political Manipulation during the New Deal

John Joseph Wallis, Price V. Fishback, and Shawn Kantor

Contributors

Author Index

Subject Index