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Does Corruption Discourage Entrepreneurship?

Author

Listed:
  • Donghyun Park

    (Asian Development Bank 6 ADB Avenue Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila 1550 Philippines)

  • Kwanho Shin

    (Department of Economics Korea University 5-1 Anam-Dong, Sungbuk-Ku Seoul, Republic of Korea 136-701)

Abstract

Although entrepreneurship plays a key role in economic development, its precise effect remains largely unknown. This is because it is challenging to objectively measure entrepreneurship and identify its determinants. In this paper, we analyze the effect of a particular feature of the institutional landscape, namely, corruption, on entrepreneurship. It is expected that corruption discourages entrepreneurship because it undermines fair competition. We use two proxies for entrepreneurship that are widely used in the literature: (1) nascent entrepreneurship collected from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, and (2) entry rate defined as the number of new firms divided by the total number of previous year's registered businesses, collected from World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey. We find that better control of corruption promotes entrepreneurship. Our evidence is stronger when we use entry rate as a proxy of entrepreneurship. Our findings are preserved when we add other determinants of entrepreneurship drawn from the literature. When we use legal origins as instruments for corruption, our results remain essentially the same. The size of population, a proxy for market size, is positively associated with entrepreneurship while corporate taxes are negatively associated.

Suggested Citation

  • Donghyun Park & Kwanho Shin, 2022. "Does Corruption Discourage Entrepreneurship?," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 21(3), pages 40-59, Fall.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:asiaec:v:21:y:2022:i:3:p:40-59
    DOI: 10.1162/asep_a_00855
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andrei Shleifer & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Rafael La Porta, 2008. "The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 285-332, June.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D53 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Financial Markets
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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