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The UK Bribery Act (2010) and its failure to prevent the (FtP) model represent a novel approach to corporate accountability. This approach is gaining traction in other issue areas and jurisdictions as a mechanism to incentivise robust corporate compliance policies. Australia now has a comparable offence of Failure to Prevent Foreign Bribery and the model has also been applied to tax evasion and fraud in the UK. As such, the FtP model is developing into an important feature of the corporate accountability landscape. There have been suggestions that the FtP model should be expanded to address social and environmental harms resulting from transnational business practices and corporate liability for failure to prevent corruption is even being considered under international law, as part of an the effort to establish an International Anti-Corruption Court with jurisdiction over individuals and corporations. However, there remains limited empirical research documenting the actual impact of the FtP Bribery on corporate behaviour. This article remedies this gap in scholarship, providing novel insights by analysing for the first time the impact of the FtP bribery offence on publicly available annual reports. It establishes a foundation for further empirical research on the impact of the FtP model beyond reporting, to corporate practices and decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper empirically examines the effects of two distinct innovation strategies. • Independent innovation sands firm performance; spillover innovation greases it. • Greasing effect of spillover innovation is amplified by bribing. • Greasing effect of spillover innovation is amplified under poor institution. • Sanding effect of independent innovation is reduced under good institution. While a large body of literature has explored the impacts of bribery on firm performance, particularly in terms of innovation outcomes, a significant gap exists in understanding the effects of innovation strategies on firms' performance as well as the influence of institutional quality on the interaction between innovation strategies and bribery. This paper empirically addresses this gap by investigating the complex effects of bribing and two distinct innovation strategies—independent innovation and spillover innovation. Using global firm-level evidence from the latest Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey, we employ three semiparametric methods to estimate productivity as proxy of firms' performance. Our results show that independent innovation exerts sanding influences on productivity, while spillover innovation and bribery grease the wheels of firm performance. Moreover, bribery and spillover innovation mutually amplify each other's positive effects on firm performance. Further examinations indicate that the impacts of innovation strategies and bribing are significantly moderated by institutional quality. Under poor institutional quality with excessive government control or corruption, the positive influence of spillover innovation and bribing tends to be strengthened. Conversely, good institutional quality mitigates the greasing effects of spillover innovation and bribery. Through multiple robustness tests employing alternative methodologies, firm performance metrics, and institutional quality measures, these findings are consistently confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption is a political and economic issue that has a detrimental impact on social and economic development. This study investigated the predictive effect of dispositional awe on corruption, and the underlying mechanisms from the perspective of connectedness. A sample of 548 (Nfemale = 371) individuals, aged between 16 and 71 years old (M = 21.18, SD = 3.39), was collected. Participants completed scales to measure dispositional awe, the sense of connectedness, corruption, and social desirability. Structural equation modelling and a bootstrap procedure were used to analyze the relationship between the variables. Results showed that dispositional awe negatively predicted corruption, including the tendencies for giving and accepting bribes, and this could be explained by the sense of connectedness, after controlling for the effect of social desirability. The findings highlight the significance of dispositional awe in relation to corruption, enhance our understanding of the underlying mechanisms connecting the two variables, and provide practical implications for the prevention of corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global petroleum industry has been much maligned over the past 10–15 years for its involvement in foreign corrupt activities due to well-publicized instances of US-led prosecution for bribery of foreign public officials. Among the high-profile cases include the infamous Technip, Snamprogetti, Kellogg Brown & Root, JGC (TSKJ) conspiracy bribing Nigerian officials of the Bonny Island LNG terminal to the far-reaching Odebrecht/Petrobras Brazilian Lava Jato and more recent global Unaoil bribery scandals. What these cases and others have in common is the incidence of 'multi-jurisdictional' prosecution for foreign bribery rather than simply prosecution by US authorities as occurred prior to 2005. Through detailed quantitative analysis, we show how this multi-jurisdictional enforcement is a petroleum industry trend. The financial and reputational risk in terms of both likelihood and impact of a foreign bribery event has increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Despite this increased risk, we found little evidence of a risk-based compliance approach among industry participants. We show that the current practice of limiting liability is not an efficient risk-based approach towards corruption compliance and is not likely to meet new anti-corruption compliance guidelines by international regulators. Our research examines a possible cause-and-effect model behind this heightened corruption risk. We profile and describe the nature of the top 10 petroleum industry multi-jurisdictional bribery cases. We then provide a display of a corruption event's drivers, consequences, and barriers in the form of a risk-based 'bow-tie' diagram. Finally, we recommend ways the industry can move towards a more risk-based corruption compliance approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paying bribes to access public services is a common form of corruption faced by citizens worldwide. A standard policy recommendation to address this problem is to create secure channels and encourage citizens to report bribery to authorities. Bribery reporting tools aim to decrease the incidence of bribery, but they could also serve to bolster anti-corruption commitment. Can bribery reporting channels also inspire citizens to fight corruption? This paper tests the claim that institutional responsiveness to bribery reporting triggers a positive feedback mechanism. The positive feedback mechanism refers to the proposition that advertising successful cases of institutional responsiveness not only persuades citizens of institutional commitment to fighting corruption but also inspires them to uptake various anti-corruption activities. The empirical strategy relies on Afrobarometer survey data from 12 countries, specifically focusing on individuals reporting bribery incidents who also answer a survey question about the subsequent actions taken by authorities. The paper assesses the persuasion effect by examining whether institutional responsiveness correlates with more positive perceptions of public institutions. Additionally, the paper assesses the inspiration effect by investigating whether this responsiveness is associated with citizens' willingness to take part in anti-corruption activities. The findings show that, even though those who have observed responsiveness to bribery reporting tend to evaluate public institutions more positively, they do not seem more willing to engage against corruption than those who do not observe responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade witnessed a surge in anti-corruption activities in post-Soviet oil-dependent countries. Despite the scale of the anti-corruption measures, and their political implications, the extant literature paid limited attention to the comparison of these campaigns, including differences in their motivations, functions, objectives, and targets. Aiming to fill this research gap, this study employs a mixed-methods research design that combines fixed-effects panel data analysis with a paired-case qualitative analysis of Russia and Kazakhstan. I argue that anti-corruption policies are the result of either economic necessity or the desire to secure power through buttressing regime legitimacy. Consequently, a significant drop in oil price due to the COVID-19 crisis is likely to result in a major anti-corruption campaign targeting high-level officials in oil-rich countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bulk of scholarship on police intervention in enforcing COVID-19 pandemic-imposed restrictions focuses on police misconduct, securitisation, human rights, police preparedness, and legitimacy, but empirical research on police corruption during the restriction in Nigeria is sparse despite reports of pervasive police extortion and bribery. Thus, this study fills the academic gap by examining the dynamics of police predation and corruption during the enforcement in Nigeria. With interview data, I uniquely examined the intervention from the purview of predatory policing – an aspect of policing that is understudied in the context of COVID-19 policing despite its relevance in contemporary discourse on social control. Evidence indicates that, as COVID-19 policing characterised predation in Nigeria, the embedded problems of police corruption revolve around unresolved police institutional challenges and police-public connivance that results from moral decadence, thereby portending gloomy implications for law enforcement and society. Therefore, advancing and implementing police reforms, addressing moral corruption, and resolving widespread socioeconomic problems are very critical in the effective policing and containment of future public health crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies are often perceived to be uniformly positive tools for anti-corruption purposes creating more transparency and making governments more accountable. However, the evidence is inconsistent and scarce with empirical research narrowly focused on ICT as a specific aspect of digitalization. This study offers new insights based on a context-dependent perspective to solve the puzzle with a more holistic view of the digital transformation process. We distinguish between rule-based and non-rule-based countries as different governance environments and suggest that the context determines how digitalization plays out. While digital tools contribute to the fight against bribery in rule-based economies, they facilitate corruptive practices in non-rule-based countries. A panel data analysis on 72 countries over a 9-year period from 2012 to 2020 supports our arguments and confirms the context-specific nature of digital transformation and its discrepant implications for different societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corrupt actors operate in an environment with numerous mechanisms designed to expose and punish their illegal behavior. Therefore, they organize their activity to reduce risk and uncertainty surrounding the situation, which takes place within and beyond a formal hierarchy. This article approaches the subject from a multidisciplinary perspective, applying theories of organization and organizationality—such as communicative constitution of organizations, social organization, partial organization, complete organization, neopatrimonialism, and patronage–to explain the organizing element of different forms of corruption. By introducing the ideas of the organization and organizationality, this study presents a new dimension of corruption and provides new insight into the scholarship on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to examine the impact of economic freedom and corruption on bank stability in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Design/methodology/approach: This study uses 38 countries in SSA from 2008 to 2019 using system GMM technique. Findings: The authors found that greater economic freedom increases economic efficiency through improving bank stability. Besides this, the authors also find that banks in environments with greater business freedom, financial freedom, trade freedom and investment freedom are less prone to solvency. The results also show that corruption improves bank stability, suggesting evidence of the "grease the wheels" hypothesis. Practical implications: The results suggest to policymakers that a high economic freedom may be an appropriate policy toward enhancing bank stability. Besides this, the results also suggest to policymakers to prioritize addressing the core issues that encourage corruption to extort bribes. Originality/value: This study provides insightful discussion on whether economic freedom and its subcomponents and corruption have an effect on bank stability in SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the growing criticism by the USA of the bribery and corruption surrounding China's trade with Africa, this study uses panel data on 48 African countries over 17 years to examine whether the relationship between corruption and China's trade in Africa differs from that of USA–Africa trade relations. Contrary to expectations, we find that the relationship between corruption and trade with Africa is the same for both countries. Africa's trade with China and the USA increases as corruption increases. Our results imply that both countries have a similar trend of trading with African countries, and they might not care about corruption in Africa. Ultimately, both countries engage with Africa for their parochial economic and political interest. The results are robust to an alternative measure of corruption and endogeneity test using a two‐stage least‐square estimation technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can prosecutions by US authorities help spread enforcement of foreign bribery laws to other countries? In this article, we explore this question by re-examining earlier scholarship that found that US prosecutions of foreign corporations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) increase the likelihood that the corporation's home state will enforce its own foreign bribery laws. Using a conditional-frailty Cox model that allows us to model foreign bribery enforcement actions as repeat-events, we do not find evidence that FCPA prosecutions lead to sustained increases of foreign bribery enforcement by target countries. We also find that prior results are not robust to the inclusion of an important confounding variable: a country's level of exposure to corruption in their trading partners. Still, while our findings indicate a more limited role of US law enforcement in this area, we nonetheless see many promising avenues for future research on transnational law enforcement and its consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how bribery is defined, negotiated, and practiced in the everyday lives of ordinary North Koreans. Reflecting on interviews spanning over two decades with North Korean migrants in South Korea and China, a team of North Korea experts has identified the patterns of micro-level bribery in everyday life in North Korea that differ, to some extent, from those of other post-communist states in Eastern Europe and Asia. By carefully examining the accounts of ten former North Korean residents, the researchers find that the traditional socialist economy, once prevalent in workplaces, schools, and hospitals, has now been supplanted by individual-to-individual private market interactions. Moreover, bribery serves not only as an informal practice but also as a "moral economy," which differs from the more organized forms of corruption seen at the elite and enterprise levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controlling shareholders have been directly involved in some of the largest and most consequential bribery scandals in the world over the course of the last decade. Nevertheless, the academic literature and the dominant international model of anticorruption law have neglected the dynamics and implications of controlling shareholder involvement in the payment of bribes. We argue that controlling shareholders, especially in family-controlled firms, may be uniquely positioned to lead corrupt schemes. We then analyze the incidence of this phenomenon in recent U.S. enforcement actions under the FCPA and in Brazilian enforcement actions under the Car Wash (Lava Jato) anticorruption operation. Controlled companies account for a minority of the FCPA cases, but for a large majority of the Brazilian cases. Controlling shareholders were implicated in a significant portion of actions against controlled companies in both contexts. We argue that the dominant international model, which is premised on organizational liability and incentives for compliance programs, is ill-suited to addressing cases of bribery led by controlling shareholders, and call for a distinct array of legal responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, developed in the long shadow cast by the 40th anniversary of the first publication of In Search Excellence offers a critical reanalysis of the orientations of the excellence project and a reconsideration of its legacy. Observing that the excellence prevails in the face of a host of academic critiques, which highlight its methodological, conceptual and empirical failings, the paper argues that In Search of Excellence continues to exercise an influence on the theory and practice of management because critics have made the conduct of Peters and Waterman their central analytical concern. Changing this focus the paper offers reflections on the lived experience of business excellence and the choices pursued by the exemplars of excellence. Drawing upon newspaper archives and other contemporary sources the paper focuses upon two of the fourteen organizations highlighted as exemplars of excellence and demonstrates serious misconduct including bribery, corruption, racism, sexism and anti-Semitism within these settings. Noting that these features of the lived experience of business excellence have evaded academic scrutiny for some 40 years, the paper concludes with the suggestion that management pedagogy and research must now adapt to acknowledge the unspeakable nature of business excellence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distrust in the civil service is not unique to any country but felt across much of the globe amid ascendant populist movements. A significant correlate of distrust in the civil service is the perception of corruption among bureaucrats. Our research addresses two main questions. First, in OECD countries, to what extent does the public view bureaucrats as corrupt? Second, what factors explain these perceptions? Data from 23 countries in the International Social Survey Programme's 2016 Role of Government survey are analyzed using multilevel logistic regression models. Among the explanatory variables included in this multilevel analysis are respondents' exposure to bribery, political party support, and political efficacy. Country-level correlates drawn from the 2016 Worldwide Governance Indicators are analyzed to explore the impact of governance quality on corruption perceptions. Results indicate that better quality of government is associated with lower perceptions of bureaucratic corruption. Likewise, notable individual-level findings suggest political efficacy and exposure to corruption are significantly associated with corruption perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the prevalence of corruption and use of intermediaries at immigration sites, the municipality, and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Mogadishu, Somalia. Through an online survey, 80 responses were recorded from residents in Mogadishu who work in academia, businesses, and international NGOs. Five anonymous civil servants were interviewed over telephone to further learn about the difficulties and potential solutions to the corruption problem. The statistical analysis revealed that Immigration is relatively less corrupted. This is due to changes in management and administrative reforms, ability to challenge fraudulent temptation of staff through call centers, and having better institutional and staff capacities than the other two institutions in question. Furthermore, direct supervision from the Ministry of Internal Security at the site of immigration with relatively enhanced working conditions with higher salaries allows for better functioning compared to Mogadishu Municipality, which is a local authority, and CID, a subdivision of an underpaid police department. Alternatively, more than half of the citizens use an intermediary to obtain their passports, birth certificates, and criminal record letters. According to the binary regression analysis, male applicants are more likely to use an intermediary than females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explored the attitudes of Kuwaiti residents toward corruption practices in Kuwait and the role of the Nazaha Kuwait Anti-Corruption Authority in tackling such actions. To achieve the aim of this study, a survey questionnaire, which was based on a survey introduced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2018, was distributed to 535 participants in Kuwait. The questionnaire covered areas related to problems facing Kuwait, behaviors of public officers, opinions on practices of public sector employees, corruption in Kuwait by industry, the role of Nazaha in Kuwait, the correlation between bribery and access to government services, and the reporting of corruption in Kuwait. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS. The findings indicate that 374 respondents noted corruption as the most serious problem in Kuwait, which is practiced systematically in Kuwait due to the prevalence of nepotism and other cultural reasons. In addition, it was found that there is dissatisfaction with the role of Nazaha, with 46.9 and 32.3% of participants reporting that Nazaha did not react in time and did not catch offenders, respectively. This study suggests that Nazaha should be empowered with further legal means to tackle corruption in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We empirically investigate the relationship between corruption and growth using a firm-level dataset that is unique in scale, covering almost 88,000 firms across 141 economies in 2006–20, with wide-ranging corruption experiences. The scale and detail of our data allow us to explore the corruption-growth relationship at a very local level, within industries in a relatively narrow geography. We report three empirical regularities. First, firms that make zero informal payments tend to grow slower than bribers. Second, this result is driven by non-bribers in high-corruption countries. Third, among bribers, growth is decreasing in the amount of informal payments—in both high- and low-corruption countries. We suggest that this set of results may be reconciled with a simple model in which endogenously determined higher bribe rates lead to lower growth, while non-bribers are often excluded entirely from growth opportunities in high-corruption settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author focuses on two key issues that can arise when arbitrating disputes involving allegations of corruption. First, the author addresses the differences in the standards and thresholds that may apply in the criminal and regulatory context and in a contractual dispute subject to arbitration. Second, the author addresses issues of legal privilege in terms of protecting internal anticorruption investigations and how this may become more complicated in cases involving subsequent arbitrations. Additionally, the author considers the challenges that may arise when allegations of bribery are made within the context of investor-state arbitrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role which corporate and financial secrecy vehicles play in enabling transnational corruption has justifiably received growing scholarly and policy interest. Less attention, however, has been given to the enabling role played by political secrecy vehicles. Political secrecy vehicles denote arrangements that allow individuals to clandestinely exercise public authority, which is concealed by a formal bureaucratic façade. This article develops analytical categories for deconstructing political secrecy structures and pinpointing the threat they pose to anti-corruption enforcement. These structures and threats are then empirically explored through an investigative case study. The case study plots how shadow political space in Uzbekistan and the simulacra of impartial public administration, was utilised by a kleptocratic syndicate to conceal an international bribery scheme, and then weaponised by the conspirators to successfully frustrate enforcement efforts in Europe. Drawing on key lessons from the case study, proposals are made for how the threats posed by political secrecy structures can be jurisprudentially and practically counteracted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past millennium, Confucian culture has prevailed in China as a typical informal institution, especially its emphasis on human feelings and interpersonal connections (guanxi) that coincides with the incentives for corruption. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that Confucian culture can generate positive effects on the formation of bureaucratic corruption in China. Using the variation in the number of jinshi across Chinese cities as a proxy for the degree of Confucian culture, and using the number of bribery recipients to measure corruption, we find that regions with more jinshi are associated with more bribe recipients. To address the endogeneity, we employ the Confucian sages in a given city as our instrumental variable. The instrumented results are consistent with our baseline claim. The findings remain robust after using a variety of tests, including using the percentage of bribe recipients instead of the number of bribe recipients, using the number of Confucius temples, Confucian academies and chaste women as alternative Confucian cultural measures, and controlling the impact of the North–South differences. In addition, we find the shock of foreign culture can mitigate the positive effect of Confucian culture on corruption. Finally, mechanism shows that the effect of Confucian culture on corruption can be attributed to the attitudes towards income unfairness, the excessive pursuit of vanity and the emphasis on interpersonal connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been highlighted many times how difficult it is to draw a boundary between gift and bribe, and how the same transfer can be interpreted in different ways according to the position of the observer and the narrative frame into which it is inserted. This also applied of course to Ancient Rome; in both the Republic and Principate lawgivers tried to define the limits of acceptable transfers and thus also to identify what we might call 'corruption'. Yet, such definitions remained to a large extent blurred, and what was constructed was mostly a 'code of conduct', allowing Roman politicians to perform their own 'honesty' in public duty – while being aware at all times that their involvement in different kinds of transfer might be used by their opponents against them and presented as a case of 'corrupt' behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crime of bribery is among the most dangerous types of corruption, as it contradicts human behavior and obliterates human rights, which society is supposed to strive to combat through what is imposed by state legislation and the harsh penalties included in its laws against its perpetrators, some of which reach the point of death. This dangerous disease has spread in the modern era, and its danger increased when it spread to some state agencies and institutions, especially those that deal directly with the public. Since bribery is what kills consciences, spreads corruption, and disrupts the functioning of the governmental apparatus and equality among members of society, it is necessary to choose competent elements for public service. Sincere and have a good reputation, their motivation is patriotism and their motivation is the determination to contribute to the development of their societies and work on their progress. However, there are employees who are captured by their lusts and seek to trade their jobs to obtain advantages by which they infringe on the rights of others and provoke disturbances that afflict the public service and disrupt human relations, and in this way they constitute a threat to the authority of the state. And the law, which requires repelling them from their shameful actions and holding them criminally accountable for committing a crime that harms society and undermines its existence, in addition to imposing appropriate disciplinary penalties as a result of their failure to fulfill the duties assigned to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. The phenomenon of difficulty answering in quantitative research is becoming a mass phenomenon, which significantly reduces the objectivity of the results obtained. As part of the study of taboo subjects, the relevance of the problem increases. The purpose of the study is to assess the importance of the factors determining the proportion of non-responses (the proportion of respondents who find it difficult to answer) in anticorruption studies. Materials and methods. The research was based on data from anticorruption studies of the State Institution of the Republic of Mordovia “Scientific Center for Socio-Economic Monitoring” (Republic of Mordovia) (2020–2022, n = 400) and the results of a targeted survey on ranking factors affecting the proportion of non-responses (2023, n = 30). Results. The study revealed the following results. Firstly, the proportion of non-responses in research with sensitive topics shows an increasing trend. Secondly, the phenomenon of non-responses is to a certain extent determined by the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents: place of residence, age, and the fact of participation in corrupt transactions. Thirdly, the proportion of non-responses depends more on the competence of the respondents, and less on the sensitivity and accessibility of the questions. Fourth, respondents have the greatest difficulty assessing the corruption of the army, government and law enforcement agencies, and the least difficulty assessing general processes and phenomena. Conclusions. The results of the study suggest that it is necessary to improve the methodology of quantitative surveys on corruption topics. The need for further study of the phenomenon of non-responses, which represent a significant amount of information about the behavior of respondents, is being actualized.

Corruption has become a transnational phenomenon that threatens the stability and security of the society. Moreover, this phenomenon has a negative impact on various spheres of society, which undermines the democratic institutions and values of any state. Statistical data from Russia and Kazakhstan indicate that the number of corruption-related crimes has been increasing, thus pointing at the lack of effective measure of combating this phenomenon. In the studies and normative acts of Russia and Kazakhstan regulating the issues of combating corruption, the concept of corruption is given a different interpretation. In this regard, using the analogy with the legislation of Kazakhstan, the authors propos a new understanding of corruption, which should be codified in the relevant Federal Law of Russia. In addition, in order to improve the quality of legal regulation of anti-corruption in the General part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, it is necessary to consolidate the list of corruption-related crimes. There are quite a lot of definitions of the term bribery in academic literature. At the same time, most authors believe that it should be considered through criminal and legal components. Bribery is one of the most important elements of corruption, responsibility for it is provided in articles 366, 367, 368 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan and articles 290, 291, 2911, 2912 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the offer and promise of a bribe (including the offer and promise of mediation in bribery) is not criminalized. In this connection, the authors, with regards to the requirements of the UN Convention against Corruption on criminalization of acts of promising, offering mediation in bribery, and relying on the practices of the legislator of the Russian Federation, propose to amend Article 368 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Mediation in Bribery). The authors believe that the discussed changes and additions will result in a legal framework for combating corruption and defining its boundaries.

This research aims to assess the local government’s capacity to develop anti-corruption policies for social assistance programs (Bansos) and post-Covid-19 economic recovery. The study examines deeply the effectiveness of the policy framework in combatting corruption at the local level. The research findings are intended to form the keystone for crafting regional anti-corruption policy strategies, particularly focusing on preventing corruption in social assistance funds during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research location chosen is the Government of Malang City, given the occurrence of widespread corruption within the local government in 2018 (https://antikorupsi.org/id/article/korupsimassal-wakil-rakyat-daerah). Have there been systematic efforts to enhance corruption prevention? This research was conducted between 2021 and 2022 during the economic recovery period following the Covid-19 pandemic, utilizing document analysis, mass media reports, and Focus Group Discussions (FGD). Employing content analysis and qualitative methods, this study highlights the necessity for innovative approaches to strengthen corruption prevention and eradication policy capabilities. While there is a commitment from local governments, concrete programs and action plans are still needed. Moreover, stricter mechanisms and enhanced oversights are essential to bolster corruption prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main challenges developing nations face is curbing bribery. While there are many efforts to curb bribery, most focused at macro level, such as law, while little has been examined at the micro level, e.g., individual behavior and intention. Those who did investigate at the micro level tend to focus on the recipients rather than the ones giving the bribe. We explored eight factors that influence Malaysian young adults' bribe giving intention based on the Reasoned Action Approach (RAA). A total of 345 respondents (Mage = 20.68, SD = 2.01, 189 are females) completed questionnaires about all RAA variables. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was carried out using smartPLS3.0 to analyze the result. The result revealed that out of the eight variables, four variables—Instrumental attitudes, Experiential Attitudes, Parents' descriptive norms and Capacity—explain 74% of the variance in bribe giving intention. An important take-away is that young adult's perception of whether their parents gave or did not give bribes in a given situation is important in influencing their bribe giving intention. Bribe giving prevention messages must be targeted explicitly toward parents, where they play a crucial role in curbing this dishonesty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature about the influence of country corruption on corporate cash holdings is not conclusive as there are studies supporting both a positive and negative relationship. To better explain this relationship, our study introduces a corporate-level mediating variable, i.e. the company's willingness to fight bribery as part of its CSR policy. Using a sample of 1,075 listed firms from 21 European Union countries for the period 2008–2019 (7,771 firm-year observations), we find a partial mediating effect of the corporate anti-bribery policy on the relationship between country corruption and corporate cash holdings. On the one hand, according to the shielding argument, country corruption negatively influences corporate cash holdings. And, on the other hand, there is a mediating effect such that firms in corrupt countries adopt less tough anti-bribery policies and, instead, they reduce their cash holdings both to protect themselves from expropriation and to signal their limit on bribe payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sentencing differences can arise from discriminatory sentences and sentence disparities. Only the former has been examined in Malaysia. This study addresses the gap using data on convicted bribe offenders between 2010 and 2021. Results show that while discriminatory sentencing arising from non-legal considerations exists, their effects on fines and imprisonment were not always uniform or in the same direction. Only being male unequivocally disadvantaged the offender. Professionals and whitecollar offenders paid higher fines, government servants and bribe solicitors served longer jail sentences, Malay judges handed out longer jail terms than their non-Malay counterparts, and the year 2021 was characterized by shorter jail terms relative to other periods. In the case of sentencing disparities, all differences are attributable to judicial discretion, exercised correctly or otherwise. Of greater concern, however, is the significant negative association between the severity of penalties imposed (fines and imprisonment) and the amount of corrupt money misappropriated. This seriously undermines the deterrent effect and fairness of the judicial system. Findings also suggest that the conclusion of a previous study that bribery offenders in Malaysia receive preferential treatment based on their social, political, and personal characteristics is not only sweeping but inaccurate and has to be modified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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How does government recentralization reform affect corruption? We utilize the pilot recentralization reform that transforms the legislative function, power, and responsibility of the district‐level authorities to the higher level of the government organ in Vietnam as a quasi‐natural experiment to address the aforementioned question. We find strong evidence that recentralization reform leads to lower corruption. The result illustrates that, among the firms which have the highest probability of making a bribe payment, those incorporated in jurisdictions experiencing the recentralization reform are 4.3% less likely to pay a bribe. In addition, the perception that bribery is a common and necessary practice is also significantly lowered in the post‐recentralization period. We further show that the impact of recentralization is stronger for firms which lack a political connection. Overall, these results shed light on the real impact of the government recentralization reform and also the determinants of corruption, thereby providing important policy implications for policymakers to create a more conducive business environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration can affect the practice of corruption in migrant-sending countries in a number of ways. In this paper we test whether or not remittance receiving households are more likely to be targeted for corruption. Using micro-level data from 20 Latin American countries, this study finds that migrant households are about 15 percentage points more likely to be asked for a bribe than non-migrant-sending households. The corruption effect is further confirmed by an instrumental variable estimation. Our findings suggest that remittances can have an unintended effect on households' risk of experiencing corruption. The excess exposure may discourage remittances and limit the positive development benefits of migration and remittances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a policy paper that analyzes a significant new development in U.S. regulatory policy designed to enhance the effort to fight global corruption. In a bold attempt to protect and promote fair competition in the global economy, the U.S. has provided government regulators with a powerful new tool. In a reversal of previous policy, the U.S. now allows prosecutors to go after foreign officials who demand bribes, even if the act of bribery occurred outside the United States. The use of this new anti-bribery tool is considered a major political and ethical development in the field of international business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens United has stimulated a cottage industry of legal scholarship on corruption. A prominent stream of this literature is self-consciously atheoretical and suggests that the current state of corruption jurisprudence suffers from a misconceived reliance on liberal political theories and a rejection of the public good. We argue that it is impossible to understand specific acts of corruption without a political theory explaining why such actions are wrong. We show that the current jurisprudence relies on a mistaken intellectual history of the public good and a political theory of American constitutionalism that commodifies citizenship and treats political participation as a market good. Pace Teachout, we cannot draw the bright lines many legal scholars desire without a better political theory of the primary goods we want to protect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bribery, an illegal conspiracy between two transactional parties, has a wide range of destructive effects on society. From an interpersonal interaction perspective, we explored how Guanxi (interpersonal relationships, including direct and indirect ones) influences individuals, especially government officials' bribe-taking probability, using behavioral experiments and questionnaires. The findings suggested that direct Guanxi promoted individuals' acceptance of bribes (Study 1a), and indirect Guanxi had the same role and effect sizes (Study 1b). However, the mechanisms were slightly different. Government officials were more likely to accept bribes from family members and friends (direct Guanxi) (than strangers) because they had more trust and felt more responsible and obligated to help them (Study 2). However, accepting bribes from those who contacted them through their family or friends (indirect Guanxi) (vs. strangers) was only driven by trust (Study 3). The present study explores the lubricant role of Guanxi in corruption, extends the literature on why bribery occurs from a new perspective, and provides suggestions for fighting corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption continues to overshadow the fundamental contributions of the construction industry, preventing the delivery of infrastructure services. Therefore, the aim of the study was to investigate perceptions of corruption within the South African construction industry. The study population consisted of practitioners and clients in the private and public sectors operating in Johannesburg, South Africa, across seven councils and associations. Participants completed a self-administered survey consisting of 49 questions focusing on 10 key areas assessing corruption in construction. There were a total of 270 survey respondents. There was consensus among participants that bribery exists in the South African construction industry and that bribery discourages whistleblowing. A majority of respondents agreed that corruption affects economic growth of the South African construction industry. Respondents felt corruption led to late completion of projects, poor workmanship, and led to the use of sub-standard materials. Respondents agreed that poor procurement processes resulted in the appointment of incompetent contractors and that practitioners engage in unethical behavior due to desperation for work. Findings support, corruption is a major issue in the South African construction industry and approaches are needed to eradicate the corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"I'm sorry, but that's bribery," said reporter Tom Steinfort to Vanuatu Minister of Foreign Affairs Ralph John Regenvanu regarding the supposed support of the island state to China in United Nations resolutions, hypothetically framed as reciprocation for an unprecedented influx of foreign capital. This conceptualization of bribery rests upon recent value negotiations concerning the moral economy of corruption within the context of the 'China threat' debate in Oceania. A decolonial methodology is necessary to prevent this superimposition of colonial interests upon indigenous views in journalistic reports, social media outlets, and academic publications. It is, therefore, necessary to interrogate the position from which reporters, journalists, and scholars speak or write about corruption in diplomatic relations in an increasingly Sinicized Pacific. This approach appreciates localized forms of theorizing indigenous ideas about appropriate economic behaviors in the context of new geopolitical relations. In the absence of a decolonial methodology, such ideas might become invisible, along with the intrinsic features of new Sino-Pacific relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the seventh round of the Afrobarometer, we find that a greater regional incidence of corruption in the utilities sector is associated with a reduced likelihood that a household reports that it has access to enough clean water. This result is not evident in older rounds of the survey that were conducted prior to methodological improvements made in round seven. Moreover, this association holds only in areas with a piped water system. Thus, our findings are consistent with the argument that corruption is a barrier to accessing water through its impact on the quality of water services. While a household that has paid a bribe is more likely to have a water access point, the regional incidence of utilities corruption predicts that the household will not have enough clean water. Individual acts of bribery, while associated with connection to a water network, are not associated with greater access in reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Firm-level bribery and regulation are two of the many determinants of firm performance. However, most of the existing studies examine the direct and linear effects of bribery and regulation and overlook their indirect effects. Using firm-level data, covering 20,343 firms in 78 developing countries, and employing a threshold model, the effects of firm performance's standard determinants vary based on the bribery and regulation levels. Our findings reveal that the impact of bribery and regulation on firm performance varies significantly depending on corruption and regulation levels. Access to external finance improves firm performance if and only if the firms are exposed to bribes and firm-level regulation is below a given threshold. Furthermore, exports boost the performance of the firms that are exposed to more bribery and spend more time with regulation than those that face lower levels of regulation and bribery. While bribery harms firm performance, our findings reveal that spending time with regulation could improve firm performance if firms are exposed to low levels of bribery. Our findings confirm the 'sand the wheels' hypothesis and limiting firm-level bribery improves firm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weak law enforcement in Indonesia has caused crimes such as corruption of social assistance funds among state officials to increase. Law enforcement is defined as the process of enforcing the norms that apply in Indonesia. Law enforcement is not a fundamental problem, not only because of the complexity of the legal system, the interaction between the legal system and the social, political and economic systems can also be a problem. Corruption has been classified as an extraordinary crime, because it is a criminal offense that has harmed state finances and economic potential. The imposition of criminal penalties or sanctions for perpetrators of criminal acts of corruption has recently been quite less frightening, including in the case of corruption of covid 19 social assistance funds. The writing of this thesis aims to find out the law enforcement against the criminal act of corruption of the covid 19 social assistance fund and the sanctions imposed on the perpetrators of corruption. Sources of legal materials consist of primary materials and secondary materials. The technique of collecting legal materials and data by quoting from data in loose-leaf notes by recording the author's name, book title, publisher's name, year of publication, and page number quoted. Law enforcement against corruption in criminal case decision Number 29/Pid.Sus-TPK/2021/PN Jkt Pst is in accordance with legal norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]