The Impact Of The 2008-2009 Global Crisis On Corruption: The Case Of The Post-Soviet Versus Other Developing Economies

This study examines the impact of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis on corruption levels across manufacturing, service sector, and core industry firms in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA). Using data from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Surveys (BEEPS IV and V), we compare firm-level perceptions of overall corruption, as well as corruption related to Customs/Imports, Courts, and Taxes/Tax collection during the crisis period (2009) and the post-crisis period (2013–2014). The analysis includes 3,723 manufacturing firms, 2,959 service sector firms, and 2,229 core industry firms across 29 countries, with sub-group comparisons between post-Soviet and non-post-Soviet countries. Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon tests reveal that, for the overall samples in all three sectors, reported corruption levels declined significantly after the crisis across all categories. In post-Soviet countries, firms in all sectors also experienced statistically significant reductions in corruption in every category. However, in non-post-Soviet countries, while overall corruption and judicial corruption declined significantly, improvements in Customs/Imports and Tax-related corruption were not statistically significant for service sector and core industry firms. These findings suggest that the crisis may have catalyzed broad institutional or governance reforms in the EECA region, particularly in postSoviet economies, though sector- and region-specific disparities in anti-corruption progress remain.