Is the Internet an effective mechanism for reducing corruption experience? Evidence from a cross-section of countries

Abstract

This article develops an indicator of Internet awareness on corruption as described in Goel et al. (2012) to see how this impacts both corruption perceptions and corruption experience. The results confirm the finding of Goel et al. (2012) that corruption perceptions are highly influenced by Internet awareness. However, the effect Internet awareness has on corruption experience is unclear. This article finds that Internet awareness decreases the frequency of corruption experience of households, while it increases the frequency of corruption experience in firms. Overall, the results suggest that the effect Internet awareness has on corruption is highly sensitive to the corruption measures used and the time the Internet data is constructed.

Keywords:

• corruption perceptions
• corruption experience
• internet
• press

JEL Classification:

• D73
• K40

Notes

¹ See Goel et al. (2012) for details on construction of the Internet measure, control variables and corruption perception measures. Goel et al. (2012) use measures of institutional quality as controls from the International Country Risk Guide; Because of data availability, this article uses equivalent WB governance indicators.

² The Internet search for this article was conducted on 31 October 2013.

³ This article follows Batra et al. (2003), by using the midpoint of each category to calculate the total per cent of sales firms pay in bribes.