IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hkm/wpaper/062009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corruption and Cross-Border Investment in Emerging Markets: Firm-Level Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Beata S. Javorcik

    (University of Oxford)

  • Shang-Jin Wei

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of corruption in emerging markets on the mode of entry and volume of inward foreign direct investment using a unique firm-level data set. It examines two effects of corruption simultaneously: a reduction in the volume of foreign investment and a shift in the ownership structure. Corruption makes local bureaucracy less transparent and hence acts as a tax on foreign investors. Moreover, corruption affects the decision to take on a local partner. On the one hand, corruption increases the value of using a local partner to cut through the bureaucratic maze. On the other hand, corruption decreases the effective protection of investor's intangible assets and lowers the probability that disputes between foreign and domestic partners will be adjudicated fairly, which reduces the value of having a local partner. The importance of protecting intangible assets increases with investor's technological sophistication, which tilts the preference away from joint ventures in a corrupt country. Empirical evidence shows that corruption reduces inward FDI and shifts the ownership structure towards joint ventures. Technologically more advanced firms are found to be less likely to engage in joint ventures.

Suggested Citation

  • Beata S. Javorcik & Shang-Jin Wei, 2009. "Corruption and Cross-Border Investment in Emerging Markets: Firm-Level Evidence," Working Papers 062009, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:hkm:wpaper:062009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hkimr.org/uploads/publication/142/ub_full_0_2_200_wp-no-06_2009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Portes, Richard & Rey, Helene, 2005. "The determinants of cross-border equity flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 269-296, March.
    2. Daniel Kaufmann & Shang-Jin Wei, 1999. "Does "Grease Money" Speed Up the Wheels of Commerce?," NBER Working Papers 7093, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Bruce Kogut & Harbir Singh, 1988. "The Effect of National Culture on the Choice of Entry Mode," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 19(3), pages 411-432, September.
    4. Shang-Jin Wei, 1997. "Why is Corruption So Much More Taxing Than Tax? Arbitrariness Kills," NBER Working Papers 6255, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Gordon, Roger H & Bovenberg, A Lans, 1996. "Why Is Capital So Immobile Internationally? Possible Explanations and Implications for Capital Income Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1057-1075, December.
    6. Daude, Christian & Fratzscher, Marcel, 2008. "The pecking order of cross-border investment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 94-119, January.
    7. Klaus E. Meyer, 1998. "Direct Investment in Economies in Transition," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1413.
    8. Wei, Shang-Jin & Fisman, Raymond & Moustakerski, Peter, 2007. "Outsourcing Tariff Evasion: A New Explanation for Entrepôt Trade," CEPR Discussion Papers 6078, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Javorcik, Beata S. & Narciso, Gaia, 2008. "Differentiated products and evasion of import tariffs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 208-222, December.
    10. R. Gaston Gelos & Shang‐Jin Wei, 2005. "Transparency and International Portfolio Holdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2987-3020, December.
    11. Shang-Jin Wei, 2000. "Local Corruption and Global Capital Flows," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 31(2), pages 303-354.
    12. Smarzynska Javorcik, Beata, 2004. "The composition of foreign direct investment and protection of intellectual property rights: Evidence from transition economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 39-62, February.
    13. 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.
    14. Magnus Blomstrom & Mario Zejan, 1989. "Why Do Multinational Firms Seek Out Joint Ventures?," NBER Working Papers 2987, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Raymond Fisman & Shang-Jin Wei, 2004. "Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from "Missing Imports" in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 471-500, April.
    16. Carl H. McMillan, 1996. "Foreign Investment in Russia: Soviet Legacies and Post-Soviet Prospects," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Patrick Artisien-Maksimenko & Yuri Adjubei (ed.), Foreign Investment in Russia and Other Soviet Successor States, chapter 3, pages 41-72, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Elizabeth Asiedu & Hadi Salehi Esfahani, 2001. "Ownership Structure In Foreign Direct Investment Projects," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(4), pages 647-662, November.
    18. James R. Markusen, 1995. "The Boundaries of Multinational Enterprises and the Theory of International Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 169-189, Spring.
    19. Ades, Alberto & Di Tella, Rafael, 1997. "National Champions and Corruption: Some Unpleasant Interventionist Arithmetic," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(443), pages 1023-1042, July.
    20. Magnus Blomström & Mario Zejan, 1991. "Why do multinational firms seek out joint ventures?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 3(1), pages 53-63.
    21. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1999. "Aggregating governance indicators," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2195, The World Bank.
    22. James R. Hines, Jr., 1995. "Forbidden Payment: Foreign Bribery and American Business After 1977," NBER Working Papers 5266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Portes, Richard & Rey, Helene & Oh, Yonghyup, 2001. "Information and capital flows: The determinants of transactions in financial assets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 783-796, May.
    24. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    25. Henisz, Witold J, 2000. "The Institutional Environment for Multinational Investment," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 334-364, October.
    26. Grubaugh, Stephen G, 1987. "Determinants of Direct Foreign Investment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(1), pages 149-152, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Beata K. Smarzynska & Shang-Jin Wei, 2000. "Corruption and Composition of Foreign Direct Investment: Firm-Level Evidence," NBER Working Papers 7969, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Beata K. Smarzynska & Shang-Jin Wei, 2002. "Corruption and Cross-Border Investment: Firm-Level Evidence," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 494, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    3. Wei, Shang-Jin & Javorcik, Beata, 2001. "Corruption and Foreign Direct Investment: Firm-Level Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 2967, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Daude, Christian & Fratzscher, Marcel, 2008. "The pecking order of cross-border investment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 94-119, January.
    5. Bailey, Nicholas, 2018. "Exploring the relationship between institutional factors and FDI attractiveness: A meta-analytic review," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 139-148.
    6. Beata S. Javorcik & Kamal Saggi, 2010. "Technological Asymmetry Among Foreign Investors And Mode Of Entry," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(2), pages 415-433, April.
    7. Javorcik, Beata S. & Özden, Çaglar & Spatareanu, Mariana & Neagu, Cristina, 2011. "Migrant networks and foreign direct investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 231-241, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Shang-Jin Wei & Yi Wu, 2002. "Negative Alchemy? Corruption, Composition of Capital Flows, and Currency Crises," NBER Chapters, in: Preventing Currency Crises in Emerging Markets, pages 461-506, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Utz Weitzel & Sjors Berns, 2006. "Cross-border takeovers, corruption, and related aspects of governance," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 37(6), pages 786-806, November.
    11. Smarzynska, Beata K., 2000. "Technological leadership and foreign investors'choice of entry mode," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2314, The World Bank.
    12. Julio, Brandon & Yook, Youngsuk, 2016. "Policy uncertainty, irreversibility, and cross-border flows of capital," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 13-26.
    13. Graf Lambsdorff, Johann, 2005. "Consequences and causes of corruption: What do we know from a cross-section of countries?," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-34-05, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    14. Wu, Tao & Delios, Andrew & Chen, Zhaowei & Wang, Xin, 2023. "Rethinking corruption in international business: An empirical review," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 58(2).
    15. Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Khalid Sekkat, 2007. "Revisiting the relationship between governance and foreign direct investment," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 50(1), pages 41-61.
    16. Thede, Susanna & Karpaty, Patrik, 2023. "Effects of corruption on foreign direct investment: Evidence from Swedish multinational enterprises," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 348-371.
    17. Demirbag, Mehmet & McGuinnness, Martina & Wood, Geoffrey & Bayyurt, Nizamettin, 2015. "Context, law and reinvestment decisions: Why the transitional periphery differs from other post-state socialist economies," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 955-965.
    18. Shang-Jin Wei, 2000. "Does Corruption Relieve Foreign Investors of the Burden of Taxes and Capital Controls?," NBER Chapters, in: International Taxation and Multinational Activity, pages 73-88, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Gossel, Sean Joss, 2018. "FDI, democracy and corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 647-662.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption; Developing Countries; Multinational Firms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hkm:wpaper:062009. 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: HKIMR (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hkimrhk.html .

    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.