东道国腐败对跨国公司进入模式的影响研究

作为东道国投资环境中的重要组成部分,腐败不但会对FDI流入总量产生影响,还会对跨国公司的战略产生影响,而首先受到影响的就是跨国公司的进入模式战略。本研究以19个新兴市场国家的745家跨国公司子公司作为样本,运用MANOVA分析、判别分析、Logistic分析等研究方法得到以下结论:第一,东道国国家层面感知腐败、产业层面感知腐败会使跨国公司采用持股比例较低的合资(控股或非控股)进入模式;第二,东道国腐败程度对跨国公司进入模式战略的影响会受到跨国公司进入东道国战略动机的调节。     

Corruption and the effects of economic freedom

The prediction that economic freedom is beneficial in reducing corruption has not been found to be universally robust in empirical studies. The present work reviews this relationship by using firms' data in a cross-country survey and argues that approaches using aggregated macro data have not been able to explain it appropriately. We model cross-country variations of the microfounded economic freedom–corruption relationship using multilevel models. Additionally, we analyse this relationship by disentangling the determinants for several components of economic freedom because not all areas affect corruption equally. The results show that the extent of the macro-effects on the measures of (micro)economic freedom for corruption, identified by the degree of economic development of a country, can explain why a lack of competition policies and government regulations may yield more corruption. Estimations for Africa and transition economy subsamples confirm our conjectures.     

The role of institutions and immigrant networks in firms’ offshoring decisions

The offshoring of production by firms has expanded dramatically in recent decades, increasing their potential for economic growth. What determines the location of offshore production? How do countries’ policies and characteristics affect a firm's decision about where to offshore? Do firms choose specific countries because of the countries’ policies or because they know them better? In this paper, we use a rich dataset on Danish firms to analyze how decisions to offshore production depend on the institutional characteristics of the country and firm-specific bilateral networks. We find that institutions that reduce credit risk and corruption increase the probability that firms will offshore there, while those that increase regulation in the labour market decrease this probability. We also show that a firm's probability of offshoring increases with the share of its employees who are immigrants from that country of origin. Finally, our analysis reveals that the negative impact of institutions that hinder offshoring is attenuated by a strong bilateral network of foreign workers.     

Exploring differences in corruption: the role of neighboring countries

The aim of this paper is to study whether corruption spreads across neighboring countries. Spatial econometric techniques are used to analyze corruption interactions, testing whether the perception of corruption in neighboring countries affect a country’s own corruption once other variables are controlled for. For a given country it is found that corruption varies neither with the behavior of its neighbors (there is no endogenous interaction) nor with their exogenous characteristics (there is no contextual interaction). Corruption is therefore not contagious, but neighboring countries tend to show similar levels of corruption because they face similar characteristics and similar institutional environments.     

Do the Effects of Corruption upon Growth Differ Between Democracies and Autocracies?

Many studies examining whether corruption lowers economic growth do not consider if the effects of corruption differ across countries. Whether corruption produces the same effects everywhere or whether its effects are conditional on some country characteristics are important questions. We investigate the association between corruption and growth, where the marginal impact of corruption is allowed to differ across democratic and nondemocratic regimes. Using cross‐country, annual data from 1984 to 2007, we regress growth on corruption, democracy and their interaction. We find that decreases in corruption raise growth but more so in authoritarian regimes. Possible reasons are that in autocracies corruption causes more uncertainty, is of a more pernicious nature, or is less substitutable with other forms of rent seeking.     

The welfare costs of corruption

Corruption has been shown to affect a variety of economic indicators, especially GDP per capita. However, as GDP is not a genuine indicator of welfare, it may reflect the welfare costs of corruption only in an incomplete way. This article uses self-rated subjective well-being as an empirical approximation to general welfare and shows that cross-national welfare?–?operationalized in this way?–?is affected by corruption not only indirectly through GDP, but also directly through nonmaterial factors. This article estimates the size of these effects as well as their monetary equivalent. The direct effect?–?not previously investigated in the corruption literature?–?is found to be substantially larger than the indirect effect.     

Corruption and assortative matching of partners in international trade

Although the effects of corruption on bilateral trade are well-documented, its impact on the composition of trading partners remains unexplored. In this paper, we argue that corruption in a country imposes asymmetric costs on its trading partners depending on their characteristics. Consequently, as the level of corruption in a country changes, its trade flows from some of its trading partners change more than others, depending on their characteristics, changing the composition of its trading partners. We focus on two characteristics of trading partners: (1) the level of corruption and (2) membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (OECD Convention). Using the gravity model, we find evidence of a negative assortative matching in international trade with respect to corruption. We find that corruption in a country is negatively associated with trade flows from high-corrupt countries and is positively associated with trade volume from signatories of the OECD convention. Our results suggest that future studies on this topic should consider controlling for institutional dissimilarities between the trading partners as it has implications for bilateral trade costs.     

ECONOMIC FREEDOM VERSUS POLITICAL FREEDOM: CROSS‐COUNTRY INFLUENCES ON CORRUPTION*

Using a well‐known index of corruption, this paper examines the determinants of corruption for a large sample of countries. Specifically, the present study brings empirical evidence to bear on the question of whether economic freedom or political freedom serves as a deterrent to corrupt activity. In particular, does greater economic freedom or greater political freedom yield a more ‘clean’ society? Our results show that greater economic freedom seems to matter more in this regard. Examining different components of economic freedom, we find that not all these components are equally effective in reducing corruption. For instance, monetary policy seems to have a stronger influence on the level of corrupt activity in a country than fiscal policy. Robustness of these findings is checked and policy implications are discussed.     

Explaining the standard errors of corruption perception indices

This paper examines the standard errors of two popular indices of corruption perceptions: the Worldwide Governance Indicators’ Control of Corruption (WGI-CC) and Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (TI-CPI). The standard errors of these indexes stem from the degree of variation across the sources upon which these two aggregate indices are based. In general, standard errors are not associated with country characteristics; this supports the common assumption that differences across surveys are random. There are two exceptions, however. They involve the degree of media freedom in a country and the country's past corruption scores, possibly indicating the use of cognitive heuristics by the assessors who do the ratings. No evidence exists that more diverse countries have greater variation across corruption scores. In comparing the two aggregate measures, we find that the standard errors for TI-CPI are associated with country characteristics in fewer cases than are those for WGI-CC. Finally, our findings raise concerns about the applicability of the WGI-CC's use of the unobserved components model for extracting signals from noise.     

腐败与经济增长的关系实证研究——基于多国面板数据的分析

本文利用多国面板数据实证研究了腐败与经济增长的关系,得出以下结论:一是对于发达国家,腐败不利于经济增长;二是对于发展中国家,一开始腐败对经济增长是有促进作用的,但腐败与经济增长之间是一种倒U型的关系,腐败对经济增长的促进作用只是暂时的;三是对于我国,改革开放的深入,市场体制的完善,政府管制的减少,腐败的负面影响已经超过了正面影响,目前处于倒U型的右半部分,即腐败不利于我国经济增长。最后,本文给出了治理我国腐败的对策建议。     

A Crook is a Crook … But is He Still a Crook Abroad? On the Effect of Immigration on Destination‐Country Corruption

This paper analyzes the impact of migration on destination‐country corruption levels. Capitalizing on a comprehensive dataset consisting of annual immigration stocks of OECD countries from 207 countries of origin for the period 1984–2008, we explore different channels through which corruption might migrate. We employ different estimation methods using fixed effects and Tobit regressions in order to validate our findings. Moreover, we also address the issue of endogeneity by using the Difference‐Generalized Method of Moments estimator. Independent of the econometric methodology, we consistently find that while general migration has an insignificant effect on the destination country's corruption level, immigration from corruption‐ridden origin countries boosts corruption in the destination country. Our findings provide a more profound understanding of the socioeconomic implications associated with migration flows.     

Do existing corruption levels matter in controlling corruption?: Cross-country quantile regression estimates

We examine the determinants of corruption using recent cross-sectional data for nearly one hundred countries. While the causes of corruption have drawn economists' interest in recent years, our main contribution is to examine the corruption determinants throughout the conditional distribution of corruption across nations. Are there different causes of corruption in highly corrupt nations compared to the least corrupt countries? For instance, we examine whether greater democracy and more economic freedom consistently reduce corruption among the most and the least corrupt. Our results for the significant determinants support some findings in the literature, but also provide new conclusions. In many cases, quantile regression estimates are quite different from those from OLS regressions. Among the most corrupt nations, larger governments and greater economic freedom do not appear to reduce corruption, but greater democracy seems to alleviate it. Our results suggest that some current corruption control policies may be reconsidered, especially among the most corrupt and least corrupt nations.     

Do existing corruption levels matter in controlling corruption? : Cross-country quantile regression estimates

We examine the determinants of corruption using recent cross-sectional data for nearly one hundred countries. While the causes of corruption have drawn economists' interest in recent years, our main contribution is to examine the corruption determinants throughout the conditional distribution of corruption across nations. Are there different causes of corruption in highly corrupt nations compared to the least corrupt countries? For instance, we examine whether greater democracy and more economic freedom consistently reduce corruption among the most and the least corrupt. Our results for the significant determinants support some findings in the literature, but also provide new conclusions. In many cases, quantile regression estimates are quite different from those from OLS regressions. Among the most corrupt nations, larger governments and greater economic freedom do not appear to reduce corruption, but greater democracy seems to alleviate it. Our results suggest that some current corruption control policies may be reconsidered, especially among the most corrupt and least corrupt nations.     

Government size,democracy, and corruption: An empirical investigation

Previous studies on the effect of government size on corruption have produced mixed results. In an attempt to explain these ambiguous results, this study investigates the effect of government size on corruption by taking into account the role of the democracy in each country. Using annual data of 82 countries between 1995 and 2008, the estimation results indicate that an increase in government size can lead to a decrease in corruption if the democracy level is sufficiently high and, in contrast, can lead to an increase in corruption if it is too low. As robustness checks, the estimations using a different index of corruption and a different proxy for government size are also conducted. The results reveal that our main findings are robust. Furthermore, to address endogeneity problems, we conduct the instrumental variables estimation and the system generalized method of moments estimation, the results of which also support our primary findings. These results provide some important implications for policymakers seeking to perform government interventions without aggravating corruption.     

Common political culture: Evidence on regional corruption contagion

Although there are indications of common regional corruption characteristics, empirical studies of corruption have assumed that influences on corruption are country-specific. In this paper we report evidence based on a cross-section of 123 economies confirming that, with few specific exceptions, corruption is a regional phenomenon. Institutional change that reduces corruption in one country affects, therefore, neighboring countries.     

CORRUPTION AND ELECTIONS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY FOR A CROSS-SECTION OF COUNTRIES

In this paper, we study whether voters are more likely to "vote out" a corrupt incumbent than to re-elect him. Specifically, we examine whether they retract their support from political candidates who they think are corrupt by looking at changes in an index of corruption perceptions between the current and the last elections. Our results suggest that corruption in public office is effectively punished by voters. Furthermore, our findings support the idea that both the political system and the democratic experience are important determinants of the voters' reaction and control of corruption; while voters in countries with parliamentary systems or with relatively low levels of democracy react negatively to an increase in corruption, no perceptible effect of this kind was found in countries with mature democracies, and the evidence is inconclusive in the case of countries with presidential systems.     

The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention: Changing the currents of trade

This paper examines how criminalizing the act of bribing a foreign public official affects international trade flows using a watershed global anti-corruption initiative — the 1997 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. I exploit variation in the timing of implementation by exporting countries and in the level of corruption of importing countries to quantify the Convention's effects on bilateral exports. I use a large panel of country pairs to control for confounding global and national trends and shocks. I find that, on average, the Convention caused a reduction in exports from signatory countries to high corruption importers relative to low corruption importers. In particular, we observe a 5.7% relative decline in bilateral exports to importers that lie one standard deviation lower on the Worldwide Governance Indicators corruption index. This suggests that by creating large penalties for foreign bribery, the Convention indirectly increased transaction costs between signatory countries and high corruption importers. The Convention may have induced OECD firms to divert their exports to less corrupt countries; while non-OECD firms not bound by the Convention may have increased their exports to corrupt countries. I also find evidence that the Convention's effects differed across product categories.     

Organizational Cultures of Corruption

Systematic differences in the incidence of corruption between countries can be explained by models of coordination failure that suggest that corruption can only be reduced by a “big push” across an entire economy. However, there is significant evidence that corruption is often sustained as an organizational culture, and can be combated with targeted effort in individual organizations one at a time. In this paper, we propose a model that reconciles these two theories of corruption. We explore a model of corruption with two principal elements. First, agents suffer a moral cost if their corruption behavior diverges from the level they perceive to be the social norm; second, the perception of the norm is imperfect; it gives more weight to the behavior of colleagues with whom the agent interacts regularly. This leads to the possibility that different organizations within the same country may stabilize at widely different levels of corruption. Furthermore, the level of corruption in an organization is persistent, implying that some organizations may have established internal “cultures” of corruption. The organizational foci are determined primarily by the opportunities and (moral) costs of corruption. Depending on the values of these parameters, the degree of corruption across departments may be relatively uniform or widely dispersed. These results also explain another surprising empirical observation: that in different countries similar government departments such as tax and education rank very differently relative to each other in the extent to which they are corrupt. This is difficult to explain in incentive‐based models if similar departments face similar incentives in different countries.     

Corruption,product complexity and African exporters

Several studies have shown that African manufacturers perform poorly, especially in comparison to their counterparts from other developing countries. We build on these studies by (a) examining the decision to stop exporting among African manufacturers and (b) investigating whether these decisions can be linked to institutional dimensions (such as corruption). Consistent with previous studies, we observe that a significant fraction of African firms stop exporting every year. Using product complexity as a measure of an industry’s ‘sensitivity’ to corruption, we find that firms in more ‘corruption-sensitive’ industries are more likely to stop exporting if there is an increase in overall corruption in the exporting country. Firm characteristics (such as size and productivity) also seem to influence the decision to stop exporting. Our finding about the relationship between corruption and the decision to stop exporting supports the conventional wisdom that corruption is detrimental to economic performance.     

Does corruption hinder investment? Evidence from Russian regions

This paper investigates the relationship between corruption and fixed capital investment in the setting of a corrupt country. Using different measures of corruption – registered cases of bribe taking and incidents of experienced corruption by the population – we find a negative relationship between investment and corruption. We then address the problem of endogeneity of corruption using an instrumental variables approach: when corruption is instrumented with freedom of the press and violations of journalists' rights, we find an even bigger negative effect. Disaggregating investment by ownership-type shows that only private investment is affected by corruption, but not investment made by state-owned companies. The negative effect is larger for companies with full or partial foreign ownership. Additionally, we look at the relationship between corruption and foreign direct investment (FDI): similar to the investment in fixed capital, we find a negative relationship; however, its statistical significance varies across specifications with different data sources for FDI and different corruption measures.