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Greasing the wheels of entrepreneurship? The impact of regulations and corruption on firm entry

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Abstract

The paper investigates whether the impact of regulations on entrepreneurship depends on corruption. We first test whether regulations robustly deter firm entry into the markets. Our results show that some regulations are indeed important determinants of entrepreneurial activity. Specifically, more procedures required to start a business and larger minimum capital requirements are detrimental to entrepreneurship. Second, we test whether corruption reduces the negative impact of regulations on entrepreneurship in highly regulated economies. Our empirical analysis for a maximum of 43 countries over the period 2003-2005 shows that corruption is beneficial in highly regulated economies. At the maximum level of regulation among our sample of countries, corruption significantly increases entrepreneurial activity. Our results thus provide support for the ‘grease the wheels’ hypothesis.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich in its series KOF Working papers with number 07-166.

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Length: 34 pages
Date of creation: May 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:kof:wpskof:07-166

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Keywords: corruption; start-ups; grease the wheels; entrepreneurship; regulation; doing business;

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References

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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Is Corruption Good for Business?
    by Andrzej Zwaniecki in New Enterprise on 2010-12-09 15:43:11
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Cited by:
  1. Douhan, Robin & Henrekson, Magnus, 2008. "Entrepreneurship and Second-best Institutions: Going Beyond Baumol’s Typology," Working Paper Series 766, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 27 Aug 2009.
  2. Axel Dreher & Christos Kotsogiannis & Steve McCorriston, 2009. "How do institutions affect corruption and the shadow economy?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 16(6), pages 773-796, December.
  3. Autio, Erkko, 2009. "The Finnish Paradox: The Curious Absence of High- Growth Entrepreneurship in Finland," Discussion Papers 1197, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
  4. Ansgar Belke & Niklas Potrafke, 2009. "Does Government Ideology Matter in Monetary Policy? – A Panel Data Analysis for OECD Countries," Ruhr Economic Papers 0094, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
  5. Dreher, Axel & Kotsogiannis, Christos & McCorriston, Steve, 2007. "Corruption around the world: Evidence from a structural model," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 443-466, September.
  6. Lili Kang & Fei Peng, 2012. "A selection analysis of returns to education in China," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 535-554, March.
  7. Stephanie Meinhard & Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "The Globalization–Welfare State Nexus Reconsidered," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 271-287, 05.
  8. Lee G. Branstetter & Francisco Lima & Lowell J. Taylor & Ana Venâncio, 2010. "Do Entry Regulations Deter Entrepreneurship and Job Creation? Evidence from Recent Reforms in Portugal," NBER Working Papers 16473, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Libman, Alexander, 2008. "Informal regionalism in Central Asia: subnational and international levels," MPRA Paper 26417, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  10. Maria Cristina Molinari, 2011. "Corruption in Privatization and Governance Regimes," Working Papers 201_28, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
  11. Jelena Budak & Edo Rajh, 2011. "Corruption as an Obstacle for Doing Business in the Western Balkans: A Business Sector Perspective," Working Papers 1104, The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.
  12. O’Mahony, Mary & Peng, Fei, 2011. "Intangible training capital and productivity in Europe," MPRA Paper 38648, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  13. Grießhaber, Nicolas & Geys, Benny, 2011. "Civic engagement and corruption in 20 European democracies," Discussion Papers, Research Professorship & Project "The Future of Fiscal Federalism" SP II 2011-103, Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB).
  14. Djankov, Simeon, 2008. "The Regulation of Entry: A Survey," CEPR Discussion Papers 7080, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  15. Jonathan Levie & Erkko Autio, 2008. "A theoretical grounding and test of the GEM model," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 235-263, October.

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