The incidence of graft on developing-country firms, Vol. 1 of 1

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Document Search > Report Details

The incidence of graft on developing-country firms

Author:	Gonzalez, Alvaro; Ernesto Lopez-Cordova, J.; E. Valladares, Elio;	Collection Title:	Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4394
Country:	World;	Date Stored:	2007/11/12
Document Date:	2007/11/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Region:	The World Region
Report Number:	WPS4394	SubTopics:	Public Sector Corruption & Anticorruption Measures; Access to Finance; Corruption & Anitcorruption Law; Crime and Society; E-Business
Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: This paper measures the extent to which firms in developing countries are the target of bribes. Using new firm-level survey data from 33 African and Latin American countries, we first show that perceptions adjust slowly to firms' experience with corrupt officials and hence are an imperfect proxy for the true incidence of graft. We then construct an experience-based index that reflects the probability that a firm will be asked for a bribe in order to complete a specified set of business transactions. On average, African firms are three times as likely to be asked for bribes as are firms in Latin America, although there is substantial variation within each region. Last, we show that graft appears to be more prevalent in countries with excessive regulation and where democracy is weak. In particular, our results suggest that the incidence of graft in Africa would fall by approximately 85 percent if countries in the region had levels of democracy and regulation similar to those that exist in Latin America.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 00 pages	Official version*	0.93
	Text	Text version**

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/MJHW0ND0A0