US political corruption: Identifying the channels of bribes for firms' financial policies

Abstract

This paper presents first-time evidence on ‘channel-based’ firm corruption in the US, spanning the period 2000–2010. By employing conviction, type of bribery, ethnicity firm-level data, and two alternative panel econometric approaches for robustness, the empirical analysis documents first, that the cash payment channel dominates bribery activities in relevance to the firms' financial policies, while ethnicity groups do matter in exemplifying the role of those channels, with the Anglo-Saxon group dominating such activities. The results could be of substantial importance for regulators in developing venues to capture corruption activities.