Lower Levels Of Corruption Research Articles

The impact of E-participation on corruption: a cross-country analysis

Corruption is an unresolved issue world-wide and it influences society negatively in many respects. Researchers have tried to understand and suggest methods to control it from different perspectives. Improving government transparency and responsibility through citizen participation has often been suggested as a solution. The development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) over the past two decades has brought great changes to citizen participation and has lead to the rise of e-participation. Digital tools enable citizens to participate in a more efficient and convenient way. Could e-participation play a significant role in anti-corruption policy? Controlling for the impacts of economy, democracy, education, economic openness, government system, party system, gender, and population at the national level, this study confirms that e-participation has a significant influence on the perception of corruption at the national level. Countries with better e-participation have lower levels of corruption. Consistent with previous studies, the impacts of economy, democracy, economic openness, government system, and party system on corruption are also supported by this study.

A Comparative Analysis of Water Governance, Water Management, and Environmental Performance in River Basins

River ecosystems are facing a diversity of threats in many parts of the world. To restore and preserve riverine environments, human societies have established water governance and management responses. However, the means by which a satisfactory environmental state can be achieved in light of different regional contexts is still poorly understood. This article explores whether or not good environmental performance can be achieved through water governance and management in combination with further context factors. To this end, we applied fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to examine data on water governance, water management, and environmental performance from a recent international study together with context data on per capita income, corruption, hydro-climate, and use pressure from other datasets. Results demonstrate that the combination of polycentric governance, high per capita income, and low levels of corruption is sufficient for achieving good water management practice. However, a good environmental state in river basins seems to primarily depend upon the overall level of pressure from human use rather than the quality of water management. This demonstrates that water governance and management should be seen as part of a broader societal transformation towards sustainability that focusses on a reduction of pressures in river basins instead of mitigating their impacts.

Modern Authoritarianism and Corruption

This paper focuses on the link between the modern authoritarianism and corruption. Even though corruption plays an important role in Communist regimes, post-colonial dictatorships and authoritarian monarchies, coercion - which is a traditional tool used by authoritarian rulers - remains the basis of these regimes. However, a new type of non-democratic regimes, which we call neoauthoritarian, has emerged since the last quarter of the XX century. The new regimes are based on a dynamic interplay between coercion and corruption. That interplay allows authoritarian rulers to bring to the forefront either coercion or corruption, depending on the current political situation in the country and the political, economic and social issues on the political agenda. In this type of regimes, ruling political-economic groups capture the state and the public authority in the country and use all their instruments and resources to achieve their private goals. This paper presents empirical results showing that the Communist regimes, dictatorships and authoritarian monarchies exist in 33 modern non-democratic states, while neoauthoritarian regimes can be found in 19 states. I show that high levels of corruption are typical of all of these regimes, especially in dictatorships and neoauthoritarian ones. I explain a relatively lower level of corruption in the authoritarian monarchies using Olson's theory of stationary bandit. In particular, I speculate that the ruling monarchs fight corruption among bureaucrats since they perceive it as stealing their own property that damages the sources of their administrative rent and their revenues. At the same time, the high-level political corruption persists. Finally, I show that dictatorships are on average more fragile than economically elastic neoauthoritarian regimes, although it might be challenging to differentiate between them. All authoritarian and neoauthoritarian regimes, except a few monarchies, are non-stable regimes, allowing me to hypothesize their coming transformations or collapse.

The Determinants of Cross-Border Corruption

We leverage on the structure of a dataset of observed cases of cross-border graft, where a firm headquartered in a country bribes public officials in another country, to provide cross-national evidence on the determinants of corruption of public officials by foreign firms. We also consider the “relational aspects” of corrupt relationships, which come to the fore when focusing on bribing where the parties involved reside in different countries.We find that economic development and small country size is associated with lower levels of corruption, as are freedom of the press, political rights, the presence of established democratic institutions, and the salience of women’s role in society. We highlight the differences between our results, and those that emerge when using other types of measures of corruption. We find some evidence that relational aspects matter in determining cross-border acts, beyond geographic distance between countries, whose negative effect on occurrences of graft emerges even after we control for bilateral trade. Cultural traits, such as sharing the same religion, and power distance, influence corruption, respectively with a negative and a positive sign.

Does corruption promote emigration? An empirical examination

This paper investigates the effects of corruption on the emigration rate of low-, medium- and high-skilled individuals at the country level. Fixed-effects, system generalized method of moments (GMM) and instrumental variable estimations are used to establish a causal relationship between emigration and corruption. The empirical results indicate that as corruption increases, the emigration rate of high-skilled migrants also increases. The emigration rate of individuals with low and medium levels of educational attainment, however, increases at low levels of corruption and then decreases beyond a threshold of 3.4–4.0, where corruption is measured on a scale of 0 (not corrupt) to 10 (totally corrupt). Splitting the sample by income inequality suggests that increased inequality reduces the ability for medium- and low-skilled migrants to emigrate. Therefore, government action should focus on controlling corruption in order to prevent a brain drain.

Low-Level Corruption Tolerance: An “Action-Based” Approach for Peru and Latin America

Since the beginning of the past decade, the tolerance of corruption by citizens of most Latin American countries has become a concept in its own right within the broader study of corruption. This construct, however, lacks a systematic approach and is yet to account for specific types of corruption tolerance or identify appropriate indicators to measure them. The present study addresses these voids by analyzing data provided by LAPOP's AmericasBarometer 2006 for Peru (a typical case for the incidence of bribery in Latin America) and the Global Corruption Barometer against a carefully constructed framework for the understanding of the phenomenon of corruption tolerance. The results indicate that attitudes toward specific types of low-level corruption should not be equated to citizens’ decisions to engage in such behavior. They further suggest that the study of corruption tolerance has the potential to greatly improve our understanding of the determinants of corruption in developing countries.

Corruption costs lives: a cross-country study using an IV approach.

This study quantitatively estimates the effects of corruption on five major health indicators by using recent cross-country panel data covering 119 countries for the period of 2005-2011. The corruption indicators provided by the World Bank and Transparency International are used, and both the two-way fixed effect and the two-stage least squares approaches are employed for our estimation. The estimation results show that, in general, corruption is negatively associated with a country's health outcomes. A lower level of corruption or a better control of corruption in a country can lead to longer life expectancy, a lower infant mortality rate and a lower under-five mortality rate for citizens. However, our estimation finds no significant association between corruption and individual diseases including human immunodeficiency virus prevalence and tuberculosis incidence. The findings suggest that corruption reduction itself is an effective method to promote health. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Regulation and corruption

Higher levels of government expenditures and more regulation naturally invite corruption, because they provide the opportunity for government officials to be paid off for regulatory favors, subsidies, and government contracts. Some countries have relatively large governments but lower levels of corruption. Scandinavian countries offer examples. While institutional differences may explain some of the cross-country differences in corruption, the most consistent relationship is that high levels of regulation are associated with more corruption. When looking at the effect of the size of government, it is the regulatory state, rather than the productive or redistributive state, that is associated with corruption.

Determinants of urban political corruption in local governments

In the first years of the 21st century, there was a building boom in Spain, which triggered many corruption cases in municipalities. This paper contributes to the scarce literature on this issue by analysing the impact of socio-economic and financial factors on urban political corruption. Our sample covers the 110 Spanish largest municipalities for 2000–2009. The findings indicate that higher politicians’ salaries and more transparency are connected with lower corruption levels. In this way, we confirm theoretical assumptions that posit that municipalities where politicians have higher salaries present less corruption cases. Finally, municipal transparency should be enhanced, because it is related to lower corruption.

When Are People Unhappy? Corruption Experience, Environment, and Life Satisfaction in Mainland China

Previous research on corruption and happiness has typically considered corruption perception as an indicator of government quality; however, the impact of direct personal experience of corruption has been largely overlooked. The current research, using the Asian Barometer Survey I data set on China, fills this gap. We found that the negative effects of personal experience of corruption on happiness are moderated by the general corruption environment, as measured by the corruption–victimization rate of a province. Corruption experience reduces life satisfaction significantly only when the external environment has a low level of corruption. We applied concepts from the broken windows theory to provide theoretical explanations for this phenomenon and used a series of models to test the robustness of our findings.

How long does it take for government decentralization to affect corruption?

Are countries with more decentralized fiscal and spending powers characterized by a lower level of corruption? Do changes in the degree of decentralization of such powers affect the level of corruption? If so, with which delay? This paper innovates on the previous literature, which relies mainly on cross sections of countries, by analyzing a pool of 24 countries for the time interval 1995–2007. The answer to both questions is positive and the estimated average delay is 3 years. The results appear robust to changes of the estimation techniques, of the indicators of corruption, of decentralization and of a variety of controlling factors.

A model of constitutional design and corruption

The present work proposes a theoretical framework to examine if details in the design of a consensual political system that incorporates proportional representation in the election process are necessary for it to take advantage of an inherent affinity to better accommodate the preferences of the members of a society. It is also examined if these details relate to the introduction of a satisfactory level of accountability for officials and lower levels of corruption.

Good Governance Attributes in Terms of Adequacy and Effectiveness of Public Works

Good governance is an antidote to graft and corruption in the implementation of government projects. In public works, gauging the adequacy and effectiveness of program/project evaluation may reflect the absence of graft in the disbursement of funds and imposition of relevant administrative rules and procedures. This study was conducted to describe good governance through adequacy and effectiveness of program implementation of the “Operation Baklas Billboards” in Region V, Philippines. This formed a basis for implying the low level of graft and corruption in public works. The study was conducted in the entire Bicol Region using respondents from the local offices of public works and highways. Correlation of the two variables was done. The findings revealed high levels of adequacy and effectiveness in the components of the “Operation Baklas Billboards” which were also correlated positively. Nonetheless, the respondents advanced strategies for further enhancement of the program in road safety management. It was implied that low level of graft and corruption could have been possible surmised.

Development, democracy and corruption: how poverty and lack of political rights encourage corruption

AbstractOn average, higher per capita income comes with lower corruption levels. Yet, countries like Mexico, Libya and Saudi Arabia are relatively wealthy but experience comparatively high corruption levels. Simultaneously, countries like Madagascar or Mozambique (in the 1990s) combine poor economic development with a low level of corruption. I propose that the two most common variables in corruption research – wealth and democracy – are mutually conditional: economic development brings about a larger (and stronger) middle class that demands public goods from the government. However, citizens’ ability to influence governmental decision-making varies by political regime type. In democracies, citizens are, on average, more successful in demanding goods from the government than in autocracies. Using a large-N approach (up to 139 countries, 1984–2006), the analysis finds robust empirical support for the proposed conditional effect.

Corruption in Emerging Markets: A Multidimensional Study

The role played by emerging markets in the global economy is well documented. However, these markets’ rapid economic development has not always been followed by commensurate advancements in their legal, political, and social institutions, which can lead to higher levels of corruption. Essentially, emerging markets may not possess the necessary governance mechanisms to deal adequately with this problem. As such, this paper uses a number of established indices to measure the relationship between corruption and a myriad of economic, financial, social, and political dimensions. A number of hypotheses linking corruption in emerging markets to these dimensions are developed and subsequently tested. We find that market growth rate, market intensity, market receptivity, commercial infrastructure, reduced country risk, and economic freedom are associated with lower levels of corruption in emerging markets. Our study adds to the expanding literature on corruption by including variables that have not been tested before, and by focusing on how graft influences emerging markets. We conclude with a discussion of policy implications that are related to our findings.

Political and government connections on corporate boards in Australia: Good for business?

While prior studies document the benefits of political connections in emerging markets, their value in developed markets is less certain. In this study, we examine the types of firms that have directors with political and government connections on their boards and the value of these connections to shareholders in Australia, a developed market with low levels of corruption and lobbying, and public funding of election campaigns. We find that directors with political and government connections hold 2.1% of listed company directorships (in 7.7% of listed companies) in Australia. After controlling for director and firm characteristics, we find the market reaction to the appointment of directors with political and government connections is significantly lower than other directors. This is particularly the case for former politicians whose political parties are not in power and who have less political experience. In summary, we find no evidence that political and government connections on corporate boards are particularly abundant or valuable to shareholders in Australia.

Gender and Corruption: The Mediating Power of Institutional Logics

Scholars have argued that recruiting more women to office is an effective way to curb corruption; however, the more precise mechanisms underlying why this may be the case have remained unclear. We use meso‐level theories to elaborate on the relationship and suggest that institutional logics mediate the effect of gendered experiences on corruption. We make two propositions: First, we suggest that the relationship between more women and lower levels of corruption is weaker in the state administration than in the legislative arena, because the bureaucratic administrative logic absorbs actors’ personal characteristics. Second, we refine our institutional argument by claiming that the stronger the bureaucratic principles are in the administration, the less gender matters. We validate our theory using data provided by the European Commission (EC) covering the EC countries and original data from the Quality of Government Institute Expert Surveys, covering a larger set of countries on a worldwide scale.

“A friend gave me a phone number” – Brokerage in low-level corruption

Corrupt exchanges are often brokered by a third party, but this phenomenon has not been satisfactorily explored by researchers of corruption. Literature on brokerage in general provides interesting models but they have not previously been applied to corrupt exchanges. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with respondents who participated in actual corrupt transactions, this paper identifies several distinct brokerage types in low-level corruption in contemporary Hungary. The paper also provides explanation of variation in corruption brokerage in terms of actors' group affiliations, forms of the corrupt exchanges, brokerage mechanisms, as well as neutrality, benefit and motivation, risk distribution, and stability of the brokerage structure. Finally, we discuss some policy implications of corruption brokerage.

What Do Corruption Indices Measure?

Evidence from the International Crime Victimization Survey and the World Business Environment Survey suggests that actual corruption experience is a weak predictor of reported corruption perception, and that some of the factors commonly found to “reduce” corruption, such as economic development, democratic institutions or Protestant traditions, systematically bias corruption perception indices downward from corruption experience. In addition, perception indices are influenced by absolute (as opposed to relative) levels of corruption, which tends to penalize large countries, and they exhibit diminishing sensitivity to both absolute and relative corruption, indicating that they may better capture differences among countries with low levels of corruption than among highly corrupt ones. Individual characteristics such as education, age, or employment status, and firm‐level characteristics such as the number of competitors are also found to influence corruption perceptions holding experience constant.

Corruption distance and FDI flows into Latin America

Studies of corruption and its relationship with foreign direct investment (FDI) have yielded mixed results; some have found that corruption deters FDI but others have found the opposite. This paper replicates earlier studies within the OLI paradigm, but also seeks to advance our understanding of this relationship by introducing the concept of “corruption distance” between pairs of countries and applying it to the special context of Latin America.After controlling for transaction costs and institutional variables, results show that corruption distance has an asymmetrical impact on FDI. Host countries with “positive” corruption distance compared to the corruption levels of home countries, experience no significant increases or reductions in levels of inward FDI. However, “negative” corruption distance suffered by host countries is associated with significantly lower levels of inward FDI. We argue that firms from a home country with relatively low levels of corruption are unfamiliar with the formal and informal institutions associated with corruption. Conversely, firms from home countries with high corruption are undeterred by high corruption in host countries. Thus, corruption distance can be seen as a key determinant of FDI when investing in a highly corrupt host location.