IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v89y2008i1p258-271.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Policy Consequences of Political Corruption: Evidence from State Environmental Programs

Author

Listed:
  • Neal D. Woods

Abstract

Objective. This study assesses the effect of political corruption on state environmental policy. Method. OLS regression analyses are used to determine if political corruption affects the strength of state environmental programs. Results. The results suggest that political corruption serves to systematically weaken state environmental programs. The effect of corruption is similar in magnitude to conventional explanations of environmental program strength, such as public environmentalism and state wealth. Its impact is particularly pronounced in states with strong organized manufacturing interests. Conclusion. Political corruption may systematically bias the substance of public policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Neal D. Woods, 2008. "The Policy Consequences of Political Corruption: Evidence from State Environmental Programs," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 89(1), pages 258-271, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:89:y:2008:i:1:p:258-271
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2008.00531.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2008.00531.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2008.00531.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen, 2003. "The Political Economy of Institutions and Corruption in American States," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(3), pages 341-365, July.
    2. Neal D. Woods, 2006. "Primacy Implementation of Environmental Policy in the U.S. States," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 36(2), pages 259-276.
    3. Rundquist, Barry S. & Strom, Gerald S. & Peters, John G., 1977. "Corrupt Politicians and Their Electoral Support: Some Experimental Observations," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 954-963, September.
    4. Peters, John G. & Welch, Susan, 1980. "The Effects of Charges of Corruption on Voting Behavior in Congressional Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 697-708, September.
    5. Holbrook, Thomas M. & Van Dunk, Emily, 1993. "Electoral Competition in the American States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(4), pages 955-962, December.
    6. Shang-Jin Wei, 2000. "How Taxing is Corruption on International Investors?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 1-11, February.
    7. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    8. Goel, Rajeev K & Nelson, Michael A, 1998. "Corruption and Government Size: A Disaggregated Analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 97(1-2), pages 107-120, October.
    9. Fredriksson, Per G. & Svensson, Jakob, 2003. "Political instability, corruption and policy formation: the case of environmental policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1383-1405, August.
    10. Lowery, David & Gray, Virginia, 1997. "How Some Rules Just Don't Matter: The Regulation of Lobbyists," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 91(2), pages 139-147, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liao, Xianchun & Dogan, Eyup & Baek, Jungho, 2017. "Does corruption matter for the environment? Panel evidence from China," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-12.
    2. Chortareas, Georgios & Logothetis, Vassilis & Papandreou, Andreas, 2018. "Public Opinion, Elections, and Environmental Fiscal Policy," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2018/9, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    3. Galinato, Gregmar I. & Chouinard, Hayley H., 2018. "Strategic interaction and institutional quality determinants of environmental regulations," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 114-132.
    4. Neal D. Woods, 2021. "The State of State Environmental Policy Research: A Thirty‐Year Progress Report," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(3), pages 347-369, May.
    5. Rajesh Sahu & Pramod Kumar, 2023. "The Missing Nexus: A Historical and Contemporary Position of the United States on Climate Change Action," International Studies, , vol. 60(4), pages 444-479, October.
    6. Gaygysyz Ashyrov & Helen Poltimäe, 2022. "Does Corruption Hinder Firm Energy Efficiency? Evidence From Vietnam," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 137, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    7. Peiró-Palomino, Jesús & Rodríguez-Crespo, Ernesto & Suárez-Varela, Marta, 2022. "Do countries with higher institutional quality transition to cleaner trade?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    8. Hessami, Zohal, 2010. "Corruption and the Composition of Public Expenditures: Evidence from OECD Countries," MPRA Paper 25945, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Gregmar Galinato & Hayley Chouinard, "undated". "Strategic Interaction and Institutional Quality Determinants of Environmental Regulations across Select OECD Countries," Working Papers 2014-7, School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eugen Dimant & Guglielmo Tosato, 2018. "Causes And Effects Of Corruption: What Has Past Decade'S Empirical Research Taught Us? A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 335-356, April.
    2. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen, 2003. "The Political Economy of Institutions and Corruption in American States," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(3), pages 341-365, July.
    3. Bin Dong & Benno Torgler, 2010. "The Consequences of Corruption: Evidence from China," Working Papers 2010.73, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    4. Nobuo Akai & Yusaku Horiuchi & Masayo Sakata, 2005. "Short-run and Long-run Effects of Corruption on Economic Growth: Evidence from State-Level Cross-Section Data for the United States," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec05-5, International and Development Economics.
    5. Bin Dong & Benno Torgler, 2010. "The Consequences of Corruption: Evidence from China," Working Papers 2010.73, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    6. Arminen, Heli & Menegaki, Angeliki N., 2019. "Corruption, climate and the energy-environment-growth nexus," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 621-634.
    7. Fredriksson, Per G. & Vollebergh, Herman R. J. & Dijkgraaf, Elbert, 2004. "Corruption and energy efficiency in OECD countries: theory and evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 207-231, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Maurizio Lisciandra & Emanuele Millemaci, 2017. "The economic effect of corruption in Italy: a regional panel analysis," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(9), pages 1387-1398, September.
    10. Tima T. Moldogaziev & Cheol Liu & Martin J. Luby, 2017. "Public Corruption in the U.S. States and Its Impact on Public Debt Pricing," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(2), pages 306-329, May.
    11. World Bank, 2008. "Mauritania : Anti-Corruption Study," World Bank Publications - Reports 12731, The World Bank Group.
    12. Dong, Bin & Torgler, Benno, 2012. "Corruption and social interaction: Evidence from China," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 932-947.
    13. Robert Gillanders, 2014. "Corruption and Infrastructure at the Country and Regional Level," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(6), pages 803-819, June.
    14. Mr. Marco Pani, 2009. "Hold Your Nose and Vote: Why Do Some Democracies Tolerate Corruption?," IMF Working Papers 2009/083, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Costas-Pérez, Elena & Solé-Ollé, Albert & Sorribas-Navarro, Pilar, 2012. "Corruption scandals, voter information, and accountability," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 469-484.
    16. Glaeser, Edward L. & Saks, Raven E., 2006. "Corruption in America," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1053-1072, August.
    17. Monica Escaleras & Peter T. Calcagno & William F. Shughart II, 2012. "Corruption and Voter Participation," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(6), pages 789-815, November.
    18. Zakharov, Nikita, 2019. "Does corruption hinder investment? Evidence from Russian regions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 39-61.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:89:y:2008:i:1:p:258-271. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.