Accountability and Corruption: Political Institutions Matter

By D. Lederman, Norman V. Loayza, Rodrigo R. Soares. 2001

783 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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�elated to openness and legal tradition�o not hold once political variables are taken into account.

Subfields: Demography, Information Systems, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/86a01059bddf5f0c57f6fba750bf449b316669b5

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Citations in the corpus

Reducing bureaucratic corruption: Interdisciplinary perspectives on what works (2018, neutral): “Recent work by Fiorino et al. (2015) employing a panel data analysis of 24 countries between 1995 and 2007 comes to similar conclusions (see also Lederman et al. 2005).”
Crime Reporting as a Measure of Institutional Development* (2004, background): “Virtually all the empirical work in the area has focused on subjective surveys of perceived levels of corruption and efficiency of the public sector (Mauro 1995; Treisman 2000; Lederman, Loayza, and Soares 2001), and there is no objective evidence of the adequacy of such indicators.”
Elections, Political Competition and Bank Failure (2014, background): “See for example, Kunicova and Rose-Ackerman (2005), Lederman, Loayza, and Soares (2005), Tavits (2007), and Nyblade and Reed (2008).”
CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF CORRUPTION: WHAT HAS PAST DECADE'S EMPIRICAL RESEARCH TAUGHT US? A SURVEY (2018, positive): “This theory was given some empirical support from an initial study that examined the role of political institutions and found that political stability is associated with lower corruption (Lederman et al., 2005).”
THE DETERMINANTS OF CORRUPTION A Literature Survey and New Evidence (2006, background): “As to cultural variables, many authors find that ethno-linguistic homogeneity tends to reduce corruption (Lederman et al., 2005; La Porta et al., 1999).”
Political Uncertainty and Cost Stickiness: Evidence from National Elections around the World (2020, background): “Indeed, political institutions are tied to both the degree of corruption (Lederman et al., 2005) and the general information environment (Bushman et al.”
Privatization, competition, and corruption: how characteristics of bribe takers and payers affect bribes to utilities (2004, neutral): “…more political stability and have greater freedom of the press; are characterized by fiscal decentralization, and have parliamentary systems (see, for example, Ades and Di Tella, 1999, Fisman and Gatti, 2002, Knack and Azfar, 2000, Kunicova, 2001, Lederman, et al., 2001, Treisman, 2000, Wei, 2000).”
One Size Fits All? Decentralization, Corruption, and the Monitoring of Bureaucrats (2010, neutral): “In contrast to most other previous studies, Lederman et al. (2005) analyze the impact of different political institutions on corruption based on a panel data set of several developed and developing countries.”