Impact of Internet Adoption and Mobile Phone Penetration on Corruption: Evidence from Selected Asia-Pacific Countries

Abstract

This study uses the mobile phone penetration as a tool of accountability against corruption and promotes transparency and good governance among selected Asia-Pacific countries. The consensus regarding fast internet speed plays a vital role to eliminate the corruption through modern informational and communication technology system. This study empirically investigates the causal relationship between internet adoption and mobile phone penetration to overcome the issue of corruption. This study adopted the Granger causality approach to analyse the panel data (2006–2016) for 12 countries. The results of Granger causality test did not find any evidence for bidirectional causality from corruption to mobile phone penetration and internet adoption. This shows that an increase in mobile phone penetration and internet adoption leads to decrease in corruption. The good governance and rule of law also found the powerful instruments to reduce the perceived corruption. This study is the first ever attempt to examine this issue for Asian Pacific countries, while other studies include only developing and advanced economies in their sample.