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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2019

Series

Economics

Bryant University

Cross-country data; corruption; entrepreneurship; entrepreneurs; wealth;

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Cross-Country Evidence Of Corruption Spillovers To Formal And Informal Entrepreneurship, Aziz N. Berdiev, James Saunoris Nov 2019

Cross-Country Evidence Of Corruption Spillovers To Formal And Informal Entrepreneurship, Aziz N. Berdiev, James Saunoris

Economics Faculty Journal Articles

Using cross‐country data this paper examines the spillovers of corruption to formal and informal entrepreneurship in neighboring countries. Whereas research has shown that entrepreneurs move underground to escape corruption, we argue that entrepreneurs may also seek refuge in neighboring countries. Indeed, the empirical results show that in response to a ceteris paribus increase in corruption in neighboring countries formal entrepreneurship increases in the home country with no effect on informal entrepreneurship. This is consistent with entrepreneurs circumventing corrupt public officials by immigrating to countries with presumably less corruption. These results withstand a battery of robustness checks. (JEL D73, L26)