Accountability and Corruption : Political Institutions Matter
Using a cross-country panel, Lederman, Loayza, and Soares examine the determinants of corruption, paying particular attention to political institutions that increase political accountability. Previous empirical studies have not analyzed the role of...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/11/1631800/accountability-corruption-political-institutions-matter http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19420 |
| Summary: | Using a cross-country panel, Lederman,
Loayza, and Soares examine the determinants of corruption,
paying particular attention to political institutions that
increase political accountability. Previous empirical
studies have not analyzed the role of political
institutions, even though both the political science and the
theoretical economics literature have indicated their
importance in determining corruption. The main theoretical
hypothesis guiding the authors' empirical investigation is
that political institutions affect corruption through two
channels: political accountability and the structure of the
provision of public goods. The results suggest that
political institutions are extremely important in
determining the prevalence of corruption: democracy,
parliamentary systems, political stability, and freedom of
the press are all associated with lower corruption. In
addition, the authors show that common findings of the
earlier empirical literature on the determinants of
corruption related to openness and legal tradition to not hold
once political variables are taken into account. |
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