New dimensions and approaches to anti-corruption policy

Project Information

ANTICORPOL

Grant agreement ID: 793347

DOI

10.3030/793347

Project closed

EC signature date 23 March 2018

Start date 1 September 2018

End date 9 September 2020

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 173 076,00

EU contribution

€ 173 076,00

Coordinated by

FONDATION NATIONALE DES SCIENCES POLITIQUES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ANTICORPOL (New dimensions and approaches to anti-corruption policy)

Reporting period: 2018-09-01 to 2020-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This project attempts an economic approach to the issue of bribery with addressing two problems: (1) measurement of corruption, which is a thorny issue on empirical studies of corruption, and (2) exploring anti-corruption policies. This project proposes the degree of corruption as a new dimension that will improve on our understanding of corruption, by combining theoretical results with empirical applications.

These issues are very important for society because, in reality, corruption continues to be a central issue in the governance of institutions (public, private or mixed) - a phenomenon that costs the European economy around 120 billion euros per year. On the theoretical front, the existing literature views corruption decision as binary choices and fails to capture the degree of corruption of an individual. At the policy level, the scholars and practitioners working on the topic are facing the increasing awareness of the failure of most anti-corruption policies. On the empirical level, the current measurement of corruption is perceived or observed corruption which is usually confounded with many different things.

The overall objective of this project is to introduce a new dimension in the discussion of corruption: the degree of corruption (i.e. the depth as opposed to the spread). I maintain that in order to have a complete study of the issue of corruption, it is about time that we bring the degree of corruption into the discussion.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

I developed a formal framework of individual decisions to participate in corruption, designed to capture not only the spread but also the depth of corruption.
I developed new anti-corruption policies which are based on the idea of market failures: economists are well aware of circumstances, such as adverse selection, moral hazard, negative externalities, where markets (i.e. exchanges) collapse.
I am working on collecting data on Chinese anti-corruption campaign to develop an empirical work about the effects of Chinese anti-corruption campaign on the firm's decisions and the stock market.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project will Conceptualize the degree of corruption and identify its root causes in order to (a) provide a theoretical foundation to a new approach of measurement that accounts for the degree of corruption, and (b) evaluate the effectiveness of current anti-corruption policies. It will develop new anti-corruption policy proposals, in particular exploiting known market failures. Meanwhile, this project will identify empirically how the anti-corruption campaign is isolated capital cities, elections, public good provision, and foreign direct investment. Finally, this project will translate these findings into technical and non-technical reports for dissemination to the general public, policy analysts and relevant organizations, and in particular to feed the public debate on the issue of corruption.

This project promotes results, which may possibly influence policy-making, and be followed-up by industry, civil society and the scientific community. This project will develop results tailored to the European context which, unlike in the existing empirical literature, is still some way from the Federal one where anti-corruption policy is debated. The findings generated by this project will be disseminated to academic as well as non-academic audiences to inform the public debate on the roots of the corruption phenomenon as well as ideas and recommendations of new anti-corruption strategies.

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