IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/glofin/v58y2023ics104402832300090x.html

Greasing the wheels of irreversible investment: International evidence on the economic effects of corruption

Author

Listed:
  • Yung, Kenneth
  • Cai, Qiuye
  • Li, Deqing Diane

Abstract

Firm- and industry-specific investments are irreversible. Irreversibility makes investment more sensitive to risk. Firms are reluctant to engage in irreversible investment (IRRE) in the face of uncertainty. Corruption provides firms with a mechanism to grease the wheels of irreversible projects. In this study, corruption is proxied by the corruption perception index (CPI). Low levels of perceived corruption (i.e., high CPI scores) imply limited access to the benefits of greasing wheels. We find a significant negative relationship between IRRE and CPI in this study. Our baseline regression results remain consistent after a battery of robustness checks. We also find that the negative relationship between IRRE and CPI is elevated (mitigated) when uncertainty is high (low). In addition, the negative relationship is moderated (elevated) if tolerance of uncertainty is high (low). An additional analysis finds results suggesting that information transparency mitigates country-level uncertainty and thus offers a viable mechanism to counter corruption.

Suggested Citation

  • Yung, Kenneth & Cai, Qiuye & Li, Deqing Diane, 2023. "Greasing the wheels of irreversible investment: International evidence on the economic effects of corruption," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:glofin:v:58:y:2023:i:c:s104402832300090x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.gfj.2023.100895
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104402832300090X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.gfj.2023.100895?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liang Shao & Chuck CY Kwok & Omrane Guedhami, 2010. "National culture and dividend policy," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 41(8), pages 1391-1414, October.
    2. Zheng, Xiaolan & El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Kwok, Chuck C.Y., 2012. "National culture and corporate debt maturity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 468-488.
    3. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1991. "The Politics of Government Decision-Making: A Theory of Regulatory Capture," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1089-1127.
    4. Axel Dreher & Martin Gassebner, 2013. "Greasing the wheels? The impact of regulations and corruption on firm entry," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 413-432, June.
    5. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2006. "What Works in Securities Laws?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 1-32, February.
    6. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474, December.
    7. Vivian W. Fang & Xuan Tian & Sheri Tice, 2014. "Does Stock Liquidity Enhance or Impede Firm Innovation?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2085-2125, October.
    8. Luigi Guiso & Giuseppe Parigi, 1999. "Investment and Demand Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 185-227.
    9. Doren Chadee & Banjo Roxas & Alexandre Kouznetsov, 2021. "Corruption, Bribery and Innovation in CEE: Where is the Link?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(4), pages 747-762, December.
    10. Roxana Mihet, 2013. "Effects of culture on firm risk-taking: a cross-country and cross-industry analysis," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 37(1), pages 109-151, February.
    11. Inna Cabelkova & Jan Hanousek, 2004. "The power of negative thinking: corruption, perception and willingness to bribe in Ukraine," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 383-397.
    12. William H. Starbuck, 2009. "Perspective ---Cognitive Reactions to Rare Events: Perceptions, Uncertainty, and Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 925-937, October.
    13. Addis Gedefaw Birhanu & Alfonso Gambardella & Giovanni Valentini, 2016. "Bribery and Investment : Firm-Level Evidence from Africa and Latin America," Post-Print hal-04041950, HAL.
    14. Fariñas, Jose C. & Ruano, Sonia, 2005. "Firm productivity, heterogeneity, sunk costs and market selection," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(7-8), pages 505-534, September.
    15. Nguyen, Nam H. & Phan, Hieu V., 2017. "Policy Uncertainty and Mergers and Acquisitions," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 613-644, April.
    16. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello, 2007. "Financial Constraints, Asset Tangibility, and Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1429-1460, 2007 12.
    17. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    18. Vivek Ghosal & Prakash Loungani, 2000. "The Differential Impact of Uncertainty on Investment in Small and Large Businesses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 338-343, May.
    19. Anokhin, Sergey & Schulze, William S., 2009. "Entrepreneurship, innovation, and corruption," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 465-476, September.
    20. repec:hal:journl:hal-02313335 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Hidefumi Kasuga, 2013. "Why Do Firms Pay Bribes? Firm‐Level Evidence From The Cambodian Garment Industry," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 276-292, March.
    22. Jan Hanousek & Anastasiya Shamshur & Jan Svejnar & Jiri Tresl, 2021. "Corruption level and uncertainty, FDI and domestic investment," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(9), pages 1750-1774, December.
    23. Addis G. Birhanu & Alfonso Gambardella & Giovanni Valentini, 2016. "Bribery and investment: Firm-level evidence from Africa and Latin America," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(9), pages 1865-1877, September.
    24. Akie Iriyama & Rajiv Kishore & Debabrata Talukdar, 2016. "Playing dirty or building capability? Corruption and HR training as competitive actions to threats from informal and foreign firm rivals," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(10), pages 2152-2173, October.
    25. Yuna Heo & Fangfang Hou & Seongkyu Gilbert Park, 2021. "Does corruption grease or sand the wheels of investment or innovation? Different effects in advanced and emerging economies," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(1), pages 35-60, January.
    26. Pindyck, Robert S, 1991. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 1110-1148, September.
    27. Xuan Tian & Tracy Yue Wang, 2014. "Tolerance for Failure and Corporate Innovation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 211-255, January.
    28. Gauthier, Bernard & Goyette, Jonathan & Kouamé, Wilfried A.K., 2021. "Why do firms pay bribes? Evidence on the demand and supply sides of corruption in developing countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 463-479.
    29. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2008. "Governance matters VII : aggregate and individual governance indicators 1996-2007," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4654, The World Bank.
    30. Hyunseob Kim & Howard Kung, 2017. "The Asset Redeployability Channel: How Uncertainty Affects Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(1), pages 245-280.
    31. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Shleifer, Andrei, 2007. "Private credit in 129 countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 299-329, May.
    32. Lui, Francis T, 1985. "An Equilibrium Queuing Model of Bribery," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(4), pages 760-781, August.
    33. Albert de Vaal & Wouter Ebben, 2011. "Institutions and the Relation between Corruption and Economic Growth," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 108-123, February.
    34. Izzet Sidki Darendeli & T L Hill, 2016. "Uncovering the complex relationships between political risk and MNE firm legitimacy: Insights from Libya," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 47(1), pages 68-92, January.
    35. Kose John & Lubomir Litov & Bernard Yeung, 2008. "Corporate Governance and Risk‐Taking," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1679-1728, August.
    36. Guiseppe Bertola & Ricardo J. Caballero, 1994. "Irreversibility and Aggregate Investment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(2), pages 223-246.
    37. Kessides, Ioannis N, 1990. "Market Concentration, Contestability, and Sunk Costs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(4), pages 614-622, November.
    38. Ben S. Bernanke, 1983. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Cyclical Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(1), pages 85-106.
    39. Regina M. Anctil & John Dickhaut & Chandra Kanodia & Brian Shapiro, 2004. "Information Transparency and Coordination Failure: Theory and Experiment," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 159-195, May.
    40. Cukierman, Alex, 1980. "The Effects of Uncertainty on Investment under Risk Neutrality with Endogenous Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 462-475, June.
    41. Beck, Paul J. & Maher, Michael W., 1986. "A comparison of bribery and bidding in thin markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-5.
    42. Vial, Virginie & Hanoteau, Julien, 2010. "Corruption, Manufacturing Plant Growth, and the Asian Paradox: Indonesian Evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 693-705, May.
    43. Chirinko, Robert S. & Schaller, Huntley, 2009. "The irreversibility premium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 390-408, April.
    44. Ilke Aydogan, 2021. "Prior Beliefs and Ambiguity Attitudes in Decision from Experience," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6934-6945, November.
    45. Huseyin Gulen & Mihai Ion, 2016. "Editor's Choice Policy Uncertainty and Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(3), pages 523-564.
    46. Afzali, Mansoor & Ҫolak, Gönül & Fu, Mengchuan, 2021. "Economic uncertainty and corruption: Evidence from public and private firms," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    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. An, Enxi & Yung, Kenneth, 2025. "Labor heterogeneity, labor adjustment costs, and externally financed firm growth," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

    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. Caixe, Daniel Ferreira, 2022. "Corporate governance and investment sensitivity to policy uncertainty in Brazil," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(PB).
    2. Yuan, Jun & Yang, Liuyong & Xu, Qi, 2025. "The real side of black swans: Tail risk and corporate investment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    3. Tomasi, Chiara & Le, Quoc Thai & Nguyen, Thi Ngoc Lan, 2025. "Greasing or Grinding? Regulatory context and the productivity effects of corruption: Evidence from Vietnamese SMEs," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Chowdhury, Md Shahedur R. & Aram, Mohsen & Javadi, Siamak & Nejadmalayeri, Ali, 2025. "Geopolitical risk and corporate capital structure," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    5. La-Bhus Fah Jirasavetakul & Mr. Antonio Spilimbergo, 2018. "Economic Policy Uncertainty in Turkey," IMF Working Papers 2018/272, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Xu, Zhaoxia, 2020. "Economic policy uncertainty, cost of capital, and corporate innovation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    7. Lou, Zhukun & Chen, Siyu & Yin, Wenwei & Zhang, Chuan & Yu, Xiaoyu, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and firm innovation: Evidence from a risk-taking perspective," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 78-96.
    8. Ilyas, Muhammad & Khan, Aamir & Nadeem, Muhammad & Suleman, Muhammad Tahir, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty, oil price shocks and corporate investment: Evidence from the oil industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    9. Zhou, Xi & Xiao, Min & Wu, Huiying & You, Jiaxing, 2024. "Does policy uncertainty travel across borders? Evidence from MNC subsidiary investment decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    10. Tran, Ly Thi Hai, 2025. "China's economic policy uncertainty and firm-level investment in Southeast Asian economies: The role of trade connection and financial development," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    11. Hu, Lifang, 2025. "Maturity mismatch and disinvestment as transmission mechanisms: Linking economic policy uncertainty to firm performance," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(PB).
    12. Tran, Quoc Trung, 2019. "Economic policy uncertainty and corporate risk-taking: International evidence," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 52.
    13. Marc Deloof & Jie Yang & Chaoyang Xu, 2022. "How uncertainty in industry policy affects corporate investment in China," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(7-8), pages 1289-1313, July.
    14. Chen, Yanyan, 2022. "Does political turnover affect corporate investment? Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(PA).
    15. Chirinko, Robert S. & Schaller, Huntley, 2009. "The irreversibility premium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 390-408, April.
    16. Roberto Iorio & Maria Luigia Segnana, 2023. "Exploring the link between corruption and innovation: the moderating role of institutional context and competitive pressure," CELPE Discussion Papers 165, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    17. Jo, Eun Hye & Lee, Jung Wha, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and managerial short-termism," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    18. Drobetz, Wolfgang & El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Janzen, Malte, 2018. "Policy uncertainty, investment, and the cost of capital," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 28-45.
    19. Liu, Yuanyuan & Li, Jing & Liu, Guanchun & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty and firm’s cash holding in China: The key role of asset reversibility," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    20. Arif Khan, Muhammad & Qin, Xuezhi & Jebran, Khalil & Ullah, Irfan, 2020. "Uncertainty and R&D investment: Does product market competition matter?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:glofin:v:58:y:2023:i:c:s104402832300090x. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620162 .

    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.