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Why does Public Investment Fail to Raise Economic Growth? The Role of Corruption

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  • M. Emranul Haque
  • Richard Kneller

Abstract

type="main"> In an endogenous growth model with information asymmetry between the government and the bureaucracy, the bureaucrats can falsely report of high-quality high-cost procurement, while providing low-quality low-cost product. This reduces the quality of public services, but inflates the public spending, which in effect reduces growth. We test our results by using three-stage least squares method in a panel set up for a system of four equations on growth, public investment, corruption and private investment. Our primary results are twofold. First, corruption increases public investment. Second, corruption reduces the returns to public investment and makes it ineffective in raising economic growth.

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  • M. Emranul Haque & Richard Kneller, 2015. "Why does Public Investment Fail to Raise Economic Growth? The Role of Corruption," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(6), pages 623-651, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:manchs:v:83:y:2015:i:6:p:623-651
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    7. RAMDE, Fousseni, 2015. "Institution, investissements et croissance dans l’UEMOA: une approche panel VAR [Institution, investments and growth in WAEMU: a panel VAR approach]," MPRA Paper 82417, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jun 2017.
    8. Marek Tomaszewski, 2018. "Corruption - A Dark Side of Entrepreneurship. Corruption and Innovations," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2018(3), pages 251-269.
    9. Zeeshan, Muhammad & han, Jiabin & Rehman, Alam & Ullah, Irfan & Hussain, Arif & Alam Afridi, Fakhr E., 2022. "Exploring symmetric and asymmetric nexus between corruption, political instability, natural resources and economic growth in the context of Pakistan," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
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