Corruption, institutions and trade

The economics literature describes various factors that affect trade between countries, which, in addition to the standard economic and geographic factors, also include cultural, ethnic and historical factors. The present study is apparently one of only a few attempts in the literature to examine directly the effects of corruption on trade and the first attempt to examine trade over time in a specific country whose level of corruption changed significantly. Israel was chosen as the subject of the study mainly because of the fact that, according to international indexes, the country’s status as a civil society has declined significantly over the past decade. According to the corruption index of Transparency International, Israel was ranked 33rd in the world, at the end of the sample period in 2008, having fallen from 14th in 1995. The results of the research can serve as the basis for comparison to similar studies of other Western countries. The study’s conclusions support the hypothesis that the effect of corruption on trade of any given country is significant, stable and negative.     

The Nature of Corruption Deterrence in a Competitive Media Sector

This paper compares the deterrence provided by a competitive media sector towards government induced corruption with that of a media monopoly in a setting where the media might raise both true as well as false allegations of corruption. It finds that competition’s impact on corruption deterrence is not necessarily better than a monopoly but rather hinges on a delicate balance between government’s kickback from corruption and the media’s potential benefit from exposure. While the paper does identify conditions in which a competitive media sector would improve upon the deterrence provided by a monopoly, it also find conditions under which it would do no better than a monopoly and in some situations its strategic response could be even worse especially when it intensifies effort towards justifying false allegations.     

Growth, public investment and corruption with failing institutions

Corruption is thought to prevent poor countries from catching up with richer ones. We analyze one channel through which corruption hampers growth: public investment can be distorted in favor of specific types of spending for which rent-seeking is easier and better concealed. To study this distortion, we propose a dynamic model where households vote for the composition of public spending, subject to an incentive constraint reflecting individuals’ choice between productive activity and rent-seeking. In equilibrium, the structure of public investment is determined by the predatory technology and the distribution of political power. Among different regimes, the model shows a possible scenario of distortion without corruption in which there is no effective corruption but the possibility of corruption still distorts the allocation of public investment. We test the implications of the model on a set of countries using a two-stage least squares estimation. We find that developing countries with high predatory technology invest more in housing and physical capital in comparison with health and education. The reverse is true for developed countries.      

Corruption, Growth, and Income Distribution: Are there Regional Differences?

This paper uses panel data from 61 countries at different stages of economic development over a 20-year period to investigate regional differences in the effect of corruption on economic growth and income distribution. Using two measures of corruption, we find that there are statistically significant regional differences in the growth and distributional impacts of corruption. The largest growth impact of corruption is found in African countries while OECD and Asian countries have the lowest growth impact. On the other hand, the largest distributional impact of corruption in found in Latin America. A 10% decrease in corruption increases the growth rate of income by about 1.7% in OECD and Asian countries, 2.6% in Latin American countries, and by 2.8% in African countries. A one standard deviation decrease in corruption decreases the gini coefficient of income distribution (0–1 scale) by 0.05 points, 0.14 points, 0.25 points, and 0.33 points in OECD, Asian, African, and Latin American countries, respectively. The results are robust to various specifications, measurement of corruption, measures of investment, as well as the conditioning variables. The results have interesting policy implications for economic growth, especially in low income countries with high rates of corruption.     

A Multitrait-Multimethod approach to pinpoint the validity of aggregated governance indicators

This study scrutinizes the construct validity of three corruption indices by assessing their discriminant and convergent validity in reference to democracy and the shadow economy with a Multitrait-Multimethod technique. It turns out that prominent indices of corruption (such as the Corruption Perception Index) do not only measure a country’s level of corrupt activities but also the degree of democracy due to their multidimensionality. While the convergent validity of corruption indices is warranted, discriminant validity must be considered as rather low. This implies problems like collinearity if multidimensional constructs are used for multivariate analysis.     

Is corruption bad for economic growth? Evidence from Asia-Pacific countries

This study utilizes the bootstrap panel Granger causality approach, which incorporates both cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity across countries, to investigate whether corruption negatively impacts economic growth in thirteen Asia-Pacific countries over the 1997–2013 period. The empirical results show that there is a significantly positive causality running from corruption to economic growth in South Korea, a significantly positive causality running from economic growth to corruption in China and no significant causality between corruption and economic growth for the remaining countries. According to the empirical results, we do not support the common perception that corruption is bad for economic growth for all thirteen Asia-Pacific. On the contrary, results of this study suggest that the “grease the wheels” hypothesis is supported for South Korea. Additionally, results of this study indicate that for most Asia-Pacific countries, policy makers’ use of anti-corruption policies to promote a country's economic development may not be effective. Finally, results of this study also suggest that for China, increase in economic growth leads to an increase in corruption.     

Deterrence versus intrinsic motivation: Experimental evidence on the determinants of corruptibility

This paper reports on an experiment of corruption that was conducted in two treatments: one with the possibility of detection and one without. It turns out that monitoring reduces corruption through deterrence; at the same time, it destroys the intrinsic motivation for honesty. Thus the net effect on overall corruption is a priori undetermined. We show that the salary level has an influence on corruption through increased opportunity costs of corruption, but fail to find evidence for a ‘payment satisfaction’ effect. Interesting policy conclusions emerge. RID="*" ID="*" Acknowledgments: We are indebted to Johann Graf Lambsdorff for calling our attention to Fujimori's gender policy and to Ernst Fehr, Bruno Frey, Alireza Jay Naghavi, and two anonymous referees for valuable comments.     

Critical creativity criteria for students in higher education: taking the interrelationship effect among dimensions into account

It is known that the overall competitive advantages enjoyed by the Taiwanese higher education system have been decreasing in recent years relative to the educational systems of other countries. In light of aiming to become a kingdom of innovation, how to regain its competitive advantages over the very short term has become a critical issue requiring immediate attention. Based on previous research indicating that improving innovation is among the primary ways of enhancing an education system’s competitive advantages, that creativity is the foundation of innovation, that organizations that truly understand human creativity and are committed to nurturing it and living with the consequences of doing so are those that are most likely to succeed, and that students are a major group to be regarded as the backbone of a nation’s future development, the aim of this study is to explore critical criteria for creativity, which could significantly improve the creativity of college students. Although related studies can be found today, these studies seem to ignore the different effects of different dimensions of creativity evaluation, leading to results that are irrational and not completely suitable for real practice. In this regard, a perception of interrelationships among these dimensions is thus taken into account while calculating weights of evaluation creativity dimensions and criteria. In accordance with the result, the top six explored critical creativity criteria are shown to help enhance today’s college students’ creativity.     

Trade intensity,country size and corruption

Abstract. Several authors claim to provide evidence that governmental corruption is less severe in countries where trade intensity is higher or populations are smaller. We argue that theory is highly ambiguous on these questions, and demonstrate that empirical links between corruption and trade intensity – or country size, strongly related to trade intensity – are sensitive to sample selection bias. Most available corruption indicators provide ratings only for those countries in which multinational investors have the greatest interest: these tend to include almost all large nations, but among small nations only those that are well-governed. We find that the relationship between corruption and trade intensity disappears, using newer corruption indicators with substantially increased country coverage. Similarly, the relationship between corruption and country size weakens or disappears using samples less subject to selection bias. Received: July 2001 / accepted: April 2002 We thank Anand Swamy and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions, Paul Schorosch for able research assistance, and Ray Fisman, Roberta Gatti, Aart Kraay, and Shang-jin Wei for kindly providing data. The conclusions of this paper are not intended to represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.     

工具经济边际与生命科学宣言

三大事件表明工具经济发展边际的到来,决定人类经济形态由此走向目的经济即生命科学经济时代。其意义不仅在于工具经济所面临的各种危机可以得到有效克服,而且可以明晰中国经济转型升级的基本方向。实际上,生命科学已经对人类经济文明起到了引领作用,原因就在于人的需求是无限的。更为重要的是,只有到了生命科学经济时代,资源不再仅仅只有加工、生产和耗费的价值,其内在的多重价值都能得到充分的展现,地球生态也由此才能取得可持续发展的效应。而东方文明,由于其系统思维和"抽象具体"的思辨逻辑,以及在生命科学范畴内的研究成果,将引领人类经济文明未来的发展方向。     

Corruption clubs: endogenous thresholds in corruption and development

The relationship between corruption and economic development is characterised by three stylised facts: (i) a strong negative correlation between corruption and development (ii) countries can remain trapped in high corruption-low development or low corruption-high development equilibria (iii) amongst intermediate levels of development corruption levels are more variable, some countries have high corruption and others low corruption. This paper argues that existing models are consistent with the first two only and demonstrates how these models might be extended to capture all three. The paper searches for the location of corruption clubs within the data and provides some explanation of their cause.     

Corruption in transition economies: Effects of government size, country size and economic reforms

This paper uses annual pooled data over 1998–2002 for transition countries to examine whether government size or country size matters more in its impact on corruption; and whether piecemeal reforms or comprehensive transition reforms are desirable for corruption reduction. Our results show that greater economic prosperity leads to lower corruption, and contrary to findings for other nations, a bigger government size seems toreduce corruption in transition nations. The geographic size of a country is positive and significant, suggesting that more spread out countries would have a harder time controlling corruption. Comprehensive transition reforms might work best at corruption reduction. A version of this paper was presented at the Sixth Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting of the Mediterranean Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute, Montecatini Terme, March 2005. Comments of participants at the Mediterranean meetings, especially Utku Teksoz, and two anonymous referees are appreciated. Insightful comments by Prof. Vojmir Franicevic on an earlier version and research assistance of Richard Connelly are also appreciated. Remaining errors are our own.     

加强生态文明 建设美丽中国

我国现阶段生态形势十分严峻,加强生态文明建设是我国社会主义现代化建设总体布局的重要内容。生态文明建设的关键是正确处理人与自然的关系,加强宣传教育,构建生态文化体系,努力树立尊重自然、顺应自然、保护自然的生态文明理念,推进主体功能区战略实施,加快经济发展方式转变,实现经济增长与环境保护并重;加强制度建设,完善GDP考核体系,为生态文明建设提供坚强的制度前提和保障。     

Innovation in NTBFs: Does leadership really matter?

Innovation is considered to be a key contributor to both the long-term survival and development of superior competitiveness in New Technology-based Firms [NTBFs]. Many factors contribute to a firm’s differential innovation performance. According to the resource-based view of the firm, leadership is one of the key contributory resources. In this article, the relationship between innovation, leadership and performance is examined through a study of 194 NTBFs. The results suggest that the level of innovation, the likelihood of success and the development of the competences needed for effective innovation are influenced by the firm’s leadership style. In particular, it was found that the transformational/human resources leadership style is more conducive to innovation and the introduction of new products, whereas transactional leadership tends to be associated with the modification of existing products. The findings outline the attributes of each leadership style associated with innovation and provide practical guidelines to enable senior managers to consider leadership in the formulation and deployment of their innovation plan. Finally, the analysis indicates the need to consider and align leadership and approaches to innovation in order to achieve sustainable competitive performance.     

Gender differences within early stage and established small enterprises: An exploratory study

This paper examines 2 years of data from GEM Canada in order to develop new insights into the factors that contribute to the performance outcomes of female enterprises and how these factors are affected by the firm’s stage of development. The analysis encompasses both personal and organizational characteristics and assesses their association with selected performance measures at the early stage as well as at the established phase of development. The findings indicate that the greater propensity of men to pursue business growth and earnings can be attributed to marital status (live with a partner) and the expected depth of the ownership team. Moreover, the performance outcomes for male entrepreneurs are influenced by a relatively wide range of variables, with business demographics being more prominent than for the female enterprises. For both genders, the mix of relevant underlying factors varies as the venture progresses along the ‘nascent-new-established’ continuum.     

An unsuccessful initiative to create a buying centre

An organization’s effectiveness depends on its ability to adapt its structures to new situations. This holds crucially true for small companies, constrained by their resources and capacities. The interest of five small local companies for setting up a united buying centre with which respond to the ever-changing market is described. Greater and better knowledge of the potential suppliers’ pool, improved purchasing prices, greater negotiating power, access to more appropriate technology and improved overall operations, all figured amongst the advantages of this initiative. However, despite the apparent importance of these advantages, the study pinpoints a number of obstacles and a range of behavioural traits amongst the members involved that would make the project unfeasible as a tool for achieving them.     

Mapping the successful succession process in family firms: evidence from Greece

The succession process in family firms has by far been determined to be the most critical phase in the family business life-cycle (e.g. Morris et al. Journal of Business Venturing 18:513–531, 1997; Wang et al. 2000) and characterized as the period in which most family firm fatalities occur (Handler and Kram Family Business Review 1:361–381, 1988). This paper is an empirical study on Greek family firms and seeks to identify the critical success factors that have a major impact on the outcome of a generational transition in the leadership of the family firm. Based on an integrated conceptual framework proposed by Pyromalis et al. (2006), we test the impact of five factors, namely the incumbent’s propensity to step aside, the successor’s willingness to take over, the positive family relations and communication, succession planning, and the successor’s appropriateness and preparation on both the satisfaction of the stakeholders with the succession process and the effectiveness of the succession process per se. The results provide a useful insight and confirm the importance of the aforementioned factors in the succession process by mapping a safe passage through the family business succession process, and by contributing not only to the overall family business literature but also generating strong arguments in favor of the family firm as an integral entrepreneurial element for a region’s sustainable economic development.     

调控新政下上市房企应对策略评析

一、新政后上市房企的应对策略表现特征 2010年第一季度房地产市场的过快发展,直接导致4月份房地产调控政策的密集出台,沪深港三地的上市房企面临新的挑战,纷纷采取不同策略予以应对,主要表现有以下三个特征。     

Networks and geography in the economics of knowledge flows

This paper reviews the literature dealing with the economic geography of knowledge flows by summarising the most relevant problems and open questions that, according to the authors’ view, have been dealt in the past and should be dealt in the future by network analysis in order to model, understand and measure the structure and dynamics of knowledge flows. The interaction between “networks” and “geography” elements within a theoretical, methodological and empirical perspective is discussed throughout the paper by making reference to previous works by the authors and to the established literature. Thus, these references, far from being complete and exhaustive, are instrumental to the achievement of the paper’s goal: to demonstrate that “networks” and “geography” are the necessary ingredients for every study of the innovative process at any level of analysis, from individual agent to institution/organization, from the regional to the national and international level.     

Longitudinal analysis of entrepreneurship and competitiveness dynamics in Latin America

This study analyzes the relationship between entrepreneurial dynamics in Latin-American countries and the level of competitiveness these countries show. Based on the research conducted by Wennekers et al. [Small Business Economics, 24(3):293–309, 2005] that demonstrates a U-shaped relationship between the country’s rate of entrepreneurship and its level of competitiveness and economic development, we hypothesize that Latin-American countries have a descending behaviour under the U-shaped curve approach. The results from three regression models support this hypothesis and suggest that competitiveness and economic growth deter entrepreneurial dynamics on Latin-American countries. We discuss that Latin-American countries need to improve some structural factors to achieve a high level of entrepreneurial dynamics.