Deals and Delays : Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times

Whether demands for bribes for particular government services are associated with expedited or delayed policy implementation underlies debates around the role of corruption in private sector development. The “grease the wheels” hypothesis, which contends that bribes act as speed money, implies three...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Freund, Caroline, Hallward-Driemeier, Mary, Rijkers, Bob
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2018
Subjects:	CORRUPTION POLICY IMPLEMENTATION REGULATION PERMITS CUSTOMS CLEARANCE BRIBERY BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT LICENSING EFFICIENCY
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29124

id	okr-10986-29124
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-291242021-05-25T10:54:42Z Deals and Delays : Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times Freund, Caroline Hallward-Driemeier, Mary Rijkers, Bob CORRUPTION POLICY IMPLEMENTATION REGULATION PERMITS CUSTOMS CLEARANCE BRIBERY BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT LICENSING EFFICIENCY Whether demands for bribes for particular government services are associated with expedited or delayed policy implementation underlies debates around the role of corruption in private sector development. The “grease the wheels” hypothesis, which contends that bribes act as speed money, implies three testable predictions. First, on average, bribe requests should be negatively correlated with wait times. Second, this relationship should vary across firms, with those with the highest opportunity cost of waiting being more likely to pay and facing shorter delays. Third, the role of grease should vary across countries, with benefits larger where regulatory burdens are greatest. The data are inconsistent with all three predictions. According to the preferred specifications, ceteris paribus, firms confronted with demands for bribes take approximately 1.5 times longer to get a construction permit, operating license, or electrical connection than firms that did not have to pay bribes and, respectively, 1.2 and 1.4 times longer to clear customs when exporting and importing. The results are robust to controlling for firm fixed effects and at odds with the notion that corruption enhances efficiency. 2018-01-03T20:49:41Z 2018-01-03T20:49:41Z 2016-07-01 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29124 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	CORRUPTION POLICY IMPLEMENTATION REGULATION PERMITS CUSTOMS CLEARANCE BRIBERY BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT LICENSING EFFICIENCY
spellingShingle	CORRUPTION POLICY IMPLEMENTATION REGULATION PERMITS CUSTOMS CLEARANCE BRIBERY BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT LICENSING EFFICIENCY Freund, Caroline Hallward-Driemeier, Mary Rijkers, Bob Deals and Delays : Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times
description	Whether demands for bribes for particular government services are associated with expedited or delayed policy implementation underlies debates around the role of corruption in private sector development. The “grease the wheels” hypothesis, which contends that bribes act as speed money, implies three testable predictions. First, on average, bribe requests should be negatively correlated with wait times. Second, this relationship should vary across firms, with those with the highest opportunity cost of waiting being more likely to pay and facing shorter delays. Third, the role of grease should vary across countries, with benefits larger where regulatory burdens are greatest. The data are inconsistent with all three predictions. According to the preferred specifications, ceteris paribus, firms confronted with demands for bribes take approximately 1.5 times longer to get a construction permit, operating license, or electrical connection than firms that did not have to pay bribes and, respectively, 1.2 and 1.4 times longer to clear customs when exporting and importing. The results are robust to controlling for firm fixed effects and at odds with the notion that corruption enhances efficiency.
format	Journal Article
author	Freund, Caroline Hallward-Driemeier, Mary Rijkers, Bob
author_facet	Freund, Caroline Hallward-Driemeier, Mary Rijkers, Bob
author_sort	Freund, Caroline
title	Deals and Delays : Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times
title_short	Deals and Delays : Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times
title_full	Deals and Delays : Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times
title_fullStr	Deals and Delays : Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times
title_full_unstemmed	Deals and Delays : Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times
title_sort	deals and delays : firm-level evidence on corruption and policy implementation times
publisher	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
publishDate	2018
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29124
_version_	1764468554720083968

Deals and Delays : Firm-level Evidence on Corruption and Policy Implementation Times

Similar Items