Firm Registration and Bribes: Results from a Microenterprise Survey in Africa

If corrupt bureaucrats target registered firms, then corruption may discourage registration. Using data from a survey of 4,801 microenterprises in Zambia, this paper looks at whether corruption is a more or less serious problem for registered firms. The paper finds results consistent with the cross-country evidence—registered firms appear to be more concerned about corruption than unregistered firms. This suggests that remaining informal and out-of-sight might reduce the burden of corruption. The paper also looks at two possible reasons why registered firms might be more concerned about corruption. It finds that there is little evidence that government officials specifically target registered firms. Registered firms were more likely to be involved in transactions with government or parastatal officials that could involve bribes—possibly explaining why they are more concerned about corruption than other firms are—but they were no more likely to pay bribes during these transactions.Zambia; Africa; Corruption; Petty Corruption; Informality; Bribes; Registration

Beyond tariffs and quotas : why don't African manufacturers export more?

There has been much concern about Africa's recent export performance. Even though tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade have been falling, Africa's share of world exports has declined and most African countries remain highly dependent on a narrow range of primary commodities for export earnings. The author looks at factors that affect the export performance of manufacturing enterprises in eight African countries. In addition to enterprise characteristics (such as size, ownership, and education of the manager), policy-related variables also affect export performance. Manufacturing enterprises are less likely to export in countries with restrictive trade and customs regulation and poor customs administration. In contrast, there is less evidence that the quality of domestic transportation infrastructure has a large impact on export performance. Although the coefficient on this variable is negative, it is statistically insignificant in most model specifications.

Bridging the digital divide - how enterprise ownership and foreign competition affect Internet access in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Many observers attributed the rapid productivity growth observed in the United States in the mid- to late 1990s, to the growing use of information, and the Internet. This in turn created concern that developing, and transition economies - where use of information technology, and the Internet was less widespread - would be left behind as productivity, and growth accelerated in technologically advanced countries, and stagnated elsewhere. Using enterprise-level data from twelve transition economies, the author looks at factors that affect whether enterprises in these countries are connected to the Internet. He finds that foreign-owned enterprises are more likely to have Internet access than other enterprises. And that employee-owned enterprises are less likely to have access. Even after controlling for other factors that might affect Internet connectivity, the quality of a country's telecommunications infrastructure appears to have a significant effect on the likelihood that an enterprise in that country has Internet access. Reducing corruption, and taking other steps to improve the business environment, would benefit domestic economies, even if Internet access had little short-term impact on productivity, or growth.General Technology,Knowledge Economy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,General Technology,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Education for the Knowledge Economy,Knowledge Economy

Does Internet Connectivity Affect Export Performance? Evidence from Transition Economies

exports, information technology, FDI

The political economy of privatization : an empirical analysis of bank privatization in Argentina

The authors study the political economy of bank privatization in Argentina. The results of their study strongly support the hypothesis that political incentives affect the likelihood of privatization. They find that: a) provinces whose governors belonged to the fiscally conservative Partido Justicialista were more likely to privatize; b) fiscal and economic crises increased the likelihood of privatization; and c) poorly performing banks were more likely to be privatized. They tested the hypotheses for a specific industry in a specific country, making it possible to control for enterprise performance and institutional characteristics. It seems reasonable to expect that similar results might hold in other industries and countries.Banks&Banking Reform,Decentralization,Municipal Financial Management,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Municipal Financial Management,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,National Governance,Housing Finance,Banks&Banking Reform

Has the internet increased trade? Evidence from industrial and developing countries

If the Internet made it easier for firms to enter new markets by reducing communication and search costs, then it may also have made it easier to export goods and services. The authors find that higher Internet penetration in developing countries is correlated with greater exports to industrial countries, but not with trade between developing countries or with exports from industrial countries. Interpreting the correlations is difficult because causation may run from Internet use to exports or from trade openness to Internet use. To test whether Internet use affects export behavior, the authors endogenize Internet use by using countries'regulation of data services and Internet provision as instrumental variables. The results are robust to endogenizing Internet penetration, suggesting that access to the Internet does affect the export performance of firms in developing countries. In other words, Internet access appears to stimulate exports from poor countries to rich countries. Moreover, the analysis suggests that regulatory policies affecting telecommunications and Internet development indirectly affect trade, further emphasizing the importance of deregulating potentially competitive services in the telecommunications industry.Rural Communications,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Knowledge Economy,Information Technology,Knowledge Economy,Education for the Knowledge Economy,Economic Theory&Research,Information Technology,Rural Communications

Universal(ly bad) service - providing infrastructure services to rural and poor urban consumers

Until recently, utility services (telecommunications, power, water, and gas) throughout the world were provided by large, usually state-owned, monopolies. However, encouraged by technological change, regulatory innovation, and pressure from international organizations, many developing countries are privatizing state-owned companies and introducing competition. Some observers worry that even if reforms improve efficiency, they might compromise an important public policy goal-ensuring"universal access"for low-income and rural households. The authors review the motivation for universal service, methods used to try to achieve it under monopoly service provision, how reforms might affect these approaches, and the theoretical and empirical evidence of the impact of reform on these consumers. Next, using household data from around the world, they investigate empirically the historical performance of public monopolies in meeting universal service obligations and the impact of reform. The results show the massive failure of state monopolies to provide service to poor and rural households everywhere except Eastern Europe. Moreover, while the data are limited, the evidence suggests that reforms have not harmed poor and rural consumers, and in many cases have improved their access to utility services. Nevertheless, because competition undermines traditional methods of funding universal service objectives (cross-subsidies), the authors also review mechanisms that could finance these objectives without compromising the benefits of reforms.Economic Theory&Research,Health Economics&Finance,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Health Economics&Finance,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Municipal Financial Management

Firm Registration and Bribes: Results from a Microenterprise Survey in Africa

If corrupt bureaucrats target registered firms, then corruption may discourage registration. Using data from a survey of 4,801 microenterprises in Zambia, this paper looks at whether corruption is a more or less serious problem for registered firms. The paper finds results consistent with the cross-country evidence—registered firms appear to be more concerned about corruption than unregistered firms. This suggests that remaining informal and out-of-sight might reduce the burden of corruption. The paper also looks at two possible reasons why registered firms might be more concerned about corruption. It finds that there is little evidence that government officials specifically target registered firms. Registered firms were more likely to be involved in transactions with government or parastatal officials that could involve bribes—possibly explaining why they are more concerned about corruption than other firms are—but they were no more likely to pay bribes during these transactions

How much of a nuisance is greasing the palms? A study on job dedication and attitudes towards corruption reports under answer bias control

This article studies how prior exposure and individual respondent’s work attitudes affect the degree to which corruption is perceived as an obstacle to business operations. Survey questions about sensitive topics like corruption are susceptible to answer bias, for which we control by implementing a randomised response technique. The results suggest that corruption tends to be under-reported. Individuals who are more dedicated to their work report corruption as a bigger obstacle. So did respondents who were previously exposed to corruption. This effect becomes significantly stronger once we control for endogeneity issues related to answer bias that affects past experiences with corruption over and above answer bias that affects reports of corruption as an obstacle to business operations. We find that individual experiences, in addition to contextual variables, shape corruption data available from surveys

Association of genetic variation with systolic and diastolic blood pressure among African Americans: the Candidate Gene Association Resource study

The prevalence of hypertension in African Americans (AAs) is higher than in other US groups; yet, few have performed genome-wide association studies (GWASs) in AA. Among people of European descent, GWASs have identified genetic variants at 13 loci that are associated with blood pressure. It is unknown if these variants confer susceptibility in people of African ancestry. Here, we examined genome-wide and candidate gene associations with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) using the Candidate Gene Association Resource (CARe) consortium consisting of 8591 AAs. Genotypes included genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data utilizing the Affymetrix 6.0 array with imputation to 2.5 million HapMap SNPs and candidate gene SNP data utilizing a 50K cardiovascular gene-centric array (ITMAT-Broad-CARe [IBC] array). For Affymetrix data, the strongest signal for DBP was rs10474346 (P= 3.6 × 10−8) located near GPR98 and ARRDC3. For SBP, the strongest signal was rs2258119 in C21orf91 (P= 4.7 × 10−8). The top IBC association for SBP was rs2012318 (P= 6.4 × 10−6) near SLC25A42 and for DBP was rs2523586 (P= 1.3 × 10−6) near HLA-B. None of the top variants replicated in additional AA (n = 11 882) or European-American (n = 69 899) cohorts. We replicated previously reported European-American blood pressure SNPs in our AA samples (SH2B3, P= 0.009; TBX3-TBX5, P= 0.03; and CSK-ULK3, P= 0.0004). These genetic loci represent the best evidence of genetic influences on SBP and DBP in AAs to date. More broadly, this work supports that notion that blood pressure among AAs is a trait with genetic underpinnings but also with significant complexit