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Corruption and the Composition of Public Expenditures: Evidence from OECD Countries

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  • Hessami, Zohal

Abstract

This paper analyzes how corruption affects the composition of public expenditures. First, a two-stage rent-seeking model with endogenous rent-setting is derived that captures both "political corruption" and "bureaucratic corruption". The model illustrates how asymmetries between industries in the degree of competition and in the difficulty of concealing bribery may influence the allocation of public spending. The theoretical implications are tested with a panel dataset for 26 OECD countries over the 1996 - 2008 period. The results suggest that the shares of spending on health and environmental protection increase, while the shares of spending on social protection and recreation, culture and religion decline with higher levels of corruption. The significance of these distortions is robust to a variety of specifications such as fixed effects, random effects, seemingly unrelated regressions, the inclusion of additional controls, and the use of alternative corruption indicators.

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  • Hessami, Zohal, 2010. "Corruption and the Composition of Public Expenditures: Evidence from OECD Countries," MPRA Paper 25945, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:25945
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Nicholas Apergis & Dan Constantin Dănuleţiu, 2013. "Public deficit, public debt, corruption and economic freedom: some empirical evidence from Romania," Romanian Economic Journal, Department of International Business and Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, vol. 16(48), pages 3-22, June.
    2. Caterina Gennaioli & Massimo Tavoni, 2016. "Clean or dirty energy: evidence of corruption in the renewable energy sector," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 261-290, March.
    3. Athanasios Lapatinas & Anastasia Litina & Eftichios Sophocles Sartzetakis, 2019. "Environmental projects in the presence of corruption," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(1), pages 103-144, February.
    4. Athanasios Lapatinas & Anastasia Litina & Eftichios S. Sartzetakis, 2011. "Corruption and Environmental Policy: An Alternative Perspective," Working Papers 2011.23, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    5. Athanasios Lapatinas & Anastasia Litina & Eftichios Sophocles Sartzetakis, 2014. "Is Abatement Effective in the Presence of Corruption? A Theoretical Exploration," DEM Discussion Paper Series 14-29, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    6. Marwa Sahnoun & Chokri Abdennadher, 2020. "Education and Corruption: a Stochastic Frontier Analysis: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(3), pages 968-981, September.
    7. Ondřej Jajkowicz & Agata Drobiszová, 2015. "The Effect of Corruption on Government Expenditure Allocation in OECD Countries," Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Mendel University Press, vol. 63(4), pages 1251-1259.
    8. Christopher J. Boudreaux & Boris N. Nikolaev & Randall G. Holcombe, 2018. "Corruption and destructive entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 181-202, June.
    9. Nicholas Apergis & Sofia Eleftheriou, 2015. "Renewable Energy Consumption, Political And Institutional Factors: Evidence From A Group Of European, Asian And Latin American Countries," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 60(01), pages 1-19.
    10. Jeffrey Milyo & Adriana Cordis, 2013. "Measuring Public Corruption in the United States: Evidence from Administrative Records of Federal Prosecutions," Working Papers 1322, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    11. Zohal Hessami & Claudio Thum & Silke Uebelmesser, 2012. "A Political Economy Explanation for In-kind Redistribution: The Interplay of Corruption and Democracy," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2012-25, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption; rent-seeking; public expenditures; budget composition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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