微腐败对企业生产率的影响——基于世界银行对143个国家企业调查数据的实证研究

文章利用世界银行对全球143个国家2002-2014年企业的调查数据,重点考察企业微腐败行为对企业生产率的影响。实证结果表明,在控制内生性问题的前提下,微腐败会显著降低企业生产率,一系列稳健性检验验证了结论的可靠性。此外,文章还重点探讨了微腐败影响企业生产率的机制,发现微腐败会显著抑制企业创新从而损害企业生产率。分子样本讨论发现,微腐败对私营企业、服务行业、腐败程度高地区以及经济欠发达地区的企业的生产率负面影响更大。

The Impact of Petty Corruption on Enterprise Productivity: Evidence from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys in 143 Countries

The World Bank defines corruption as the abuse of public office for private gain. Corruption is a global phenomenon. Its roots lie deep in bureaucratic and political institutions, and its effect on development varies with country conditions. Experience suggests that corruption is bad for development. Therefore, countries in the world are committed to fighting against corruption. However, according to the latest Corruption Perceptions Index 2019 (CPI) issued by the Transparency International, more than two thirds of 180 countries and territories CPI score are below 50, where 100 is very clean and 0 is highly corrupt. The average CPI score is 43. These findings imply that corruption is still a serious challenge and anti-corruption movements across the globe should continue. China, as the largest transitional and developing country, has launched the most severe anti-corruption moment after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China at the end of 2012. Unfortunately, China's CPI score does not present an upward trend since 2012 and its CPI score is 41 and its ranking is 80 in 2019. The reason may be closely related to the size of the corruption. The World Bank further distinguishes corruption into grand corruption and petty corruption. Grand corruption is often associated with high-level public officials and large sums of money, and it is generally seen as detrimental to long term economic viability. While petty corruption is often associated with smaller amounts of money and lower level public officers. Petty corruption is commonplace that makes it difficult to notice and measure, and thus leading researchers to paying little attention to its economic effect. This paper tries to fill the gap. Based on the World Bank enterprise survey data in 143 countries from 2002 to 2014, this study explores the impacts of petty corruption on enterprise productivity. The study shows that the petty corruption can significantly reduce enterprise productivity by controlling the potential endogeneity with 2SLS method, and a series of robustness tests support our findings. In addition, we try to examine the potential mechanisms behind these findings, and find that petty corruption constrains enterprise innovation and consequently reduces enterprise productivity. Finally, we do four types of sub-sample analyses, the sub-sample discussion finds that petty corruption has greater negative impacts on private enterprises, enterprises of service industries, and enterprises in regions with higher level of corruption as well as in economically less-developed countries.