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Bergen Summer Research School
Course | BSRS 2021

Corruption: Research, Regulation and Governance

This course will equip students with insights and tools for analysis of corruption-related challenges and measures against it - within and across countries.

Main content

Course leader
Tina Søreide, Professor of Law and Economics, NHH Norwegian School of Economics.

Course lecturers
Kalle Moene, Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, University of Oslo.
Ivar Kolstad, Associate Professor, NHH Norwegian School of Economics.

Corruption distorts governance and facilitates other crimes. This course gives participants a solid startingpoint for research on corruption, organized in three parts:

First, it addresses the phenomenon of corruption and reviews empirical results on the variation of the problem. Participants learn to estimate the extent of the problem in a society given available data.

Second, it offers an introduction to the legal regulation of the problem, including conflict of interest regulation, criminal law, and corporate liability. Participants consider cases and learn to apply insights from the course.

Third, the course addresses variation in implementation and enforcement of rules against corruption. In this context, participants discuss the importance of nonlegal solutions, involving foreign players in a country, collective action from the side of the private sector, investigative journalism, and civil society.

The course draws on a wide range of research approaches, especially from economics, political science and law.

Learning outcomes 
Students will learn to:

  • Study forms of corruption in a specific society and assess the quality of relevant data
  • Analyze the regulation of the problem and the performance of anti-corruption initiatives
  • Approach and find solutions to corruption-related challenges (upon case-based learning)
  • Assess and discuss the role and responsibility of non-legal actors at the domestic and international level


Credits
Participation at the BSRS is credited under the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). Participants submitting an essay, in a form of a publishable manuscript of 10-20 pages, after the end of the summer school will receive 10 ECTS. Deadline for submission will be decided by your course leader.

It is also possible to participate without producing an essay. This will give you 4 ECTS. In order to receive credits, we expect full participation in the course-specific modules, plenary events and roundtables.

Tina Søreide is Professor of Law and Economics at NHH Norwegian School of Economics. Her research is focused on corruption, governance, markets and development, currently with an emphasis on law enforcement. She was previously employed by the Faculty of Law, University of Bergen (UiB), the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) and the World Bank, Washington DC. At NHH, she teaches courses in business ethics, corruption and governance, and organizes a research program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement. Søreide has been engaged in policy work for the Norwegian Government and internationally, including for the OECD, the EU, the World Bank, development agencies and governments.

Litterature
Rose-Ackerman, Susan, and Bonnie J. Palifka. Corruption and government: Causes, consequences, and reform. Cambridge University Press, 2016.

There will be shorter texts distributed during the course as well.