دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی فساد تجاری و رونق اقتصادی - Sage 2017

Abstract

Prior literature shows that government corruption mostly hurts poorer economies, whereas recent events, including the 2008 U.S. economic crisis, suggest that business corruption may harm growth in wealthier economies. Using multinational surveys in which citizens communicated their perceptions of corruption levels in both the private and the public sectors, we examine the extent of business corruption relative to government corruption in countries and its relation to economic prosperity. We find that citizens of wealthier countries report higher business corruption than citizens of poor countries, and relatively low government corruption. Business corruption is evidently a greater concern to citizens of wealthier countries. Furthermore, we find that an increase in perceived business corruption is associated with a decrease in income per capita mainly in wealthy countries. In wealthier economies, business trust has a larger role, and perceived business corruption has a stronger effect on growth. Finally, our evidence suggests that an increase in perceived business corruption leads to increase in regulation, and the marginal effect of the regulation on growth is positive.

Conclusion

Business trust plays a larger role in the economy of wealthy countries, and we find that an increase in citizens’ perceptions of business corruption affects economic growth mostly in wealthy countries. Whereas prior research shows that government corruption mostly hurts poorer countries, we find that business corruption is a greater concern in wealthier economies. Our analysis shows that citizens report higher business corruption in high-income-percapita countries than in low-income-per-capita countries. In view of the prior literature showing higher government corruption in poor countries, the idea of higher business corruption in wealthy countries may seem counterintuitive. However, the norms and mechanisms that prevent public officials from seeking private gains may not stop businesspersons from corruptly pursuing profits in wealthy countries. In some cases, the intense competition and markets in prosperous economies may actually drive businesspersons to act unethically (Akerlof & Shiller, 2015; Shleifer, 2004).

How can wealthy countries keep business corruption from hurting their economies? According to some experts, better regulation could have prevented the U.S. and Icelandic crises or mitigated their effects (Boyes, 2009; Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, 2011). We find that governments regulate the entry of businesses into their markets when citizens perceive businesses to be corrupt, and this regulation positively affects economic growth on average. These limited results may support the idea that regulation benefits the economy. But the relation between regulation and prosperity is intricate. Regulation can serve the public’s interest, or it can benefit bureaucrats and politicians (Djankov et al., 2002; Pinotti, 2012). Even with the best of intentions, whether regulation will help an economy is unclear. Thus, for example, the U.S. Congress enacted the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 in response to corporate scandals, with the goal of restoring public trust in capital markets. However, the costs of complying with this regulation may have slowed down the U.S. economy.7 We show that business corruption hurts growth in wealthy economies. The question is what measures can remedy this problem.