Corruption and social trust: The role of corporate social responsibility

The importance and benefits of social trust have widely been recognized in the literature. However, there has been increasing concern about corruption in relation to a decline in social trust, and the role of business in this relationship remains largely unknown. This study aims to examine the linkages among corruption, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and social trust. Using a large sample of 6892 corporations from 33 countries over the period 2010–2014, the results demonstrate that corruption generates a highly eroding effect on social trust, whereas CSR has important implications for promoting trust among people in society. The results further suggest the potential role of CSR in mitigating the eroding effect of corruption on social trust. These results are robust across various methods of estimation, falsification tests, and in a different time period (2017–2020). This study makes several contributions to the literature both theoretically and empirically, and offers meaningful implications for businesses and policymakers.     

Political corruption and accounting choices

We examine how political corruption affects firms’ accounting choices. We hypothesize and find that firms headquartered in corrupt districts manipulate earnings downwards, relative to firms headquartered elsewhere. Our finding is robust to alternative corruption measures, alternative discretionary accrual measures, alternative model specifications, the instrumental variable approach and difference-in-differences analyses based on firm relocation and high profile cases. We find that firms headquartered in corrupt districts prefer income-decreasing accounting choices and exhibit higher conservatism. Finally, we find that the effect of corruption on earnings management is more pronounced for geographically concentrated firms, for firms without political connections, for firms in politically sensitive industries, for firms with lower transient institutional investor ownership and for firms with less analyst coverage. In sum, our findings suggest that firms respond to corruption by lowering their accounting earnings.     

中国征地中的双重委托代理问题

研究目的：运用委托代理理论和博弈论方法论证中国征地过程具有双重委托代理的特征及存在的问题。研究方法：归纳法，博弈分析法和图示分析法。研究结果：违法征地频繁发生的原因：（1）显性契约中的地方政府通过政治手段将隐性契约中的委托代理关系瓦解，致使显性约束力明显占优；（2）各利益主体在规则选择上存在不确定性。研究结论：征地制度的双重委托代理关系，使国家监督处于低效状态；行政权利过大，地方政府利益的一致化及隐性契约缺乏监控和惩罚机制都给违规征地创造了条件。     

国家审计在反腐败中的作用透视——以捷克为例

防范与揭露腐败，是国家审计义不容辞的责任，也是国家审计参与国家治理的重要途径。捷克最高审计署依法参与反腐败的经验与做法，在国有企业财务收支、政府采购合同和欧盟资金管理等方面的审计实践，尤其是针对腐败的预防提出的建设性的要求，可以为我国国家审计所借鉴。另外，捷克最高审计署为了提升自身的反腐败审计水平，在加大对员工信息化审计培训的同时，积极参与国际反腐败审计的合作，取得了一些成果。我国国家审计可以借鉴捷克最高审计署的反腐败审计经验，更好地参与国家治理。     

Effects of regulatory burden and corruption on firm performance: Evidence from Moldova

Firms in Moldova face a high level of regulatory burden, as proxied by the number of inspections by public authorities. At the same time, they face high levels of corruption. We examine the effect of frequent inspections on four measures of firm performance: labour and total factor productivity, and levels of tangible and intangible assets. We also investigate how corruption affects the relationship between inspections and firm performance. We perform panel data analysis using firm-level administrative data and survey data from Moldova in 2005–2015. The results show that inspections and corruption each affect firm productivity negatively, but corruption moderates the negative effect of inspections. We also find that inspections and intangible assets are positively correlated, but this correlation is weaker for higher levels of corruption. Finally we examine whether these results differ by industry, firm size and ownership types. Inspections and corruption affect medium and large firms, and state-owned enterprises differently from micro and small firms and private firms respectively.