فساد تجاری و رونق اقتصادی Business Corruption and Economic Prosperity

Introduction Government corruption mostly hurts poorer economies (e.g., Ades & Di Tella, 1999; La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, & Vishny, 1999; Mauro, 1995; Svensson, 2005; Treisman, 2000). Recent events suggest that business corruption stints growth in wealthier economies. For example, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that investigated the severe 2008 economic crisis in the United States identified the ‘‘breakdown in ethics’’ of businesses as one of the reasons for the crisis (Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, 2011). Business corruption is also believed to be at the core of Iceland’s economic crisis, where the three major privately owned commercial banks collapsed in 2008, and where income per capita shrank by more than 11% from 2007 to 2010 (Boyes, 2009). The Volkswagen emissions scandal (see, for example, U.S. Environment Protection Agency, 2015) is another recent example of the business corruption that takes root in wealthy countries with low government corruption. In this research, we examine the extent of perceived business corruption relative to government corruption in countries and its relation to national economic prosperity. Our analysis is based on surveys administered in more than 80 countries that asked citizens their perceptions of corruption in both the business and government sectors. Our analysis suggests two major conclusions: First, we find that whereas citizens perceive government corruption to be lower in countries with higher income per capita, as prior literature reports, they perceive business corruption to be higher in wealthier countries. One may expect a positive relation between government and business corruption because legal and cultural standards can influence the behavior of business people and civil servants similarly (e.g., Aghion, Algan, Cahuc, & Shleifer, 2010), and because less corrupt governments can act to reduce business corruption.1 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).2 Citizen perceptions of businessperson corruption in wealthy countries might be biased and may not reflect objective corruption. Even so, these perceptions may affect the economy. Indeed, our second main finding is that perceived business corruption is negatively associated with economic prosperity mostly in wealthier countries.