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Mobile Phone Diffusion and Corruption in Africa
Political Communication
Abstract
The explosion of mobile phones into a region that, until recently, was nearly devoid of telecommunications infrastructure provides a valuable opportunity to explore the potential effects of information and communication technology on various economic and social outcomes. This article focuses specifically on the potential influence that mobile phones will exert on corruption in Africa. Two distinct empirical analyses test the hypothesis that mobile phones will reduce corruption in Africa, as a result of decentralizing information and communication and thereby diminishing the opportunities available to engage in corruption as well as increasing the potential of detection and punishment. The results of a fixed effects regression of panel data at the country level reveal a significant negative correlation between a country's degree of mobile phone penetration and that country's level of perceived corruption. In addition to this, a multivariate regression of survey data reveals that the degree of mobile phone signal coverage across 13 Namibian provinces is significantly associated with reduced perceptions of corruption at the individual level.
... In what follows, we first conceptualize ownership as a variable, before we describe the dataset and present some descriptive patterns. We subsequently demonstrate its usefulness by re-visiting research on the effects of internet provision on a regime's democratic quality (Rød & Weidmann, 2015) and its level of corruption (Bailard, 2009) when including data from TOSCO. In so doing, we show some ways of how our data can be aggregated, indicating the flexibility in using the dataset, and suggest avenues for further research. ...
... We demonstrate the explanatory potential of the TOSCO data with regression analyses on the factors influencing the effect of internet penetration on democratic change and corruption, respectively. We draw first on the study by Rød and Weidmann (2015) and then on that by Bailard (2009), assessing in each case whether the ownership of the companies providing internet/mobile penetration moderates the respective effects. We propose that both political effects of the internet systematically vary with the ownership of those companies providing internet access, controlling for a country's level of internet penetration (Freyburg & Garbe, 2018). ...
... We expect the potential of the internet to curtail corruption-the abuse of public office for private gain, including bribery of public officials (Transparency International n.d.)-to be conditioned on the origin of the companies providing access. Several empirical studies suggest that corruption decreases with increasing access to internet services (e.g., Bailard, 2009;Kanyam et al., 2017;Sassi & Ben Ali, 2017). The main argument is that ICT reduce the discretion of public officials, enable the monitoring of and reporting about decision-makers, and foster mobilization against corruption at large scale. ...
The ‘internet’—familiar shorthand for information and communication technologies (ICT)—is built on a physical infrastructure owned by a variety of state and private actors, foreign and domestic, with multiple interests. It has not only driven change on a global scale; its spread also had a profound impact on the social sciences. However, our understanding of how its architecture, and especially its owners, influence its political and economic impact is still in its infancy. This paper presents the Telecommunications Ownership and Control (TOSCO) dataset on ownership of internet service providers (ISPs) that allows to recognize the internet as strategically built and used by governments and corporations. Along with a thorough discussion of the conceptualization and operationalization of ownership as a variable, the TOSCO dataset enables comparative large-N analysis of the determinants and effects of varying ownership structures and identities in the transforming context of 49 African countries, 2000–2019. We demonstrate its usefulness with descriptive statistics and regression analyses using replication data from research on the internet’s democratizing and corruption-reducing effects. In allowing for a more realistic account, TOSCO supports scholars and practitioners concerned with the determinants and effects of internet service provision, use and control in Africa and beyond.
... However, people in the developing world have only had limited access to telecommunications -often only by means of payphones. As recently as 2000 subscription rates to fixed-line networks in Africa were as low as 3 percent (Bailard, 2009). It was initially believed that the lack of interest in fixed-line telephony -whether due to financial limitations or other reasons -would apply to mobile phones also. ...
... The conclusion can be drawn that the lack of fixed-line subscriptions in Africa cannot be ascribed to a lack of interest in telephony and the concomitant access to the information society (Bailard, 2009). The real reasons for the lack of demand for fixed-line services are the relatively high cost of fixed-line infrastructure, the fact that it has not been available in many rural areas, and a variety of other factors. ...
... The real reasons for the lack of demand for fixed-line services are the relatively high cost of fixed-line infrastructure, the fact that it has not been available in many rural areas, and a variety of other factors. In contrast, due to the privatization of telecommunication industries since the mid-1990s, most mobile phone markets are characterized by competitive industries due to the presence of more than one operator (Bailard, 2009;ITU, 2011). The result is more affordable and reliable mobile services. ...
... Finally, yet others claim that the internet plays a critical or very important role in reducing corruption across various parts of the world. For instance, Bailard (2009) notes the transformational role of mobile phone penetration across the 46 African countries analyzed, with a corre- sponding impact on reducing perceived corruption in terms of CPI scores. The spread of mobile phone communication technologies offers a fertile ground for proliferation of the mobile internet (Bertot et al. 2010). ...
... Furthermore, certain patterns can be observed across the three role categories. For instance, all scholarswho argue in favor of the critical role of the internet in addressing corruption, largely refer to different countries in Africa: Bailard (2009) Tufekci & Wilson (2010), who analyze the role of online tools in Egypt. Next, there appear to be less clear patterns across the "somewhat important" column. ...
... However, three studies within this category employ statistical (regression) analysis as a major method, while only two do so in the "critical" role category, e.g. Bailard (2009) and Tufekci & Wilson (2010), and one in the "instrumental" role category. Yet it should be noted that since the "somewhat important" category happens to generate the bulk of sources, the relatively higher number of statistical analysis papers does not really appear to be a clear pattern. ...
The paper reviews existing literature on the role of the internet in addressing corruption by breaking it down into instrumental, important, and critical roles, across two types of political regimes – (semi-)authoritarian and democracies. It analyzes the key resources and strategies utilized by governments and activists across these regimes, and looks into the common themes that emerge as a result of analyzing literature sources, i.e. the notion of crisis, lack of a single accepted definition of corruption across nations, factors found to positively correlate with reduced corruption, and the evolving nature of the internet. The paper finds that neither regime can be perfectly immune against mass-scale protests caused by dissatisfaction with worsening corruption. However, the regimes differ in the nature of protests, with semi-authoritarian regimes witnessing more violent and aggressive uprisings fueled by long-accumulated social disappointment with previous repressive regimes than across much of democracies.
... The investigation centers specifically on the effect of cell phone entrance in corruption by Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries and differs from Bailard (2009) and Asongu and Nwachukwu (2016) studies with some extent. For instance, they utilized the summed-up strategy for minutes estimator created by Arellano and Bover (1995) to test the causality between cell phone infiltration, debasement and between web appropriation and corruption. ...
... Remaining all other things being constant, if there is one unit change in mobile phone subscription, it will lead to −0.53 unit change (decrease) in corruption perceived level. These results (inverse relationship between LMBP and CC) are consistent with those of Kanyam et al. (2017) and Bailard (2009). The internet adoption is significant and negatively related to perceived corruption level in columns (1) and (4) of REM and in FEM (2). ...
... The prior study of Bailard (2009) and recent studies of Asongu and Nwachukwu (2016) and Kanyam et al. (2017) have discussed only mobile phone diffusion and its impact on corruption in African countries. However, this study includes the Asia-Pacific countries as these are now fastgrowing economies of the world. ...
This study uses the mobile phone penetration as a tool of accountability against corruption and promotes transparency and good governance among selected Asia-Pacific countries. The consensus regarding fast internet speed plays a vital role to eliminate the corruption through modern informational and communication technology system. This study empirically investigates the causal relationship between internet adoption and mobile phone penetration to overcome the issue of corruption. This study adopted the Granger causality approach to analyse the panel data (2006–2016) for 12 countries. The results of Granger causality test did not find any evidence for bidirectional causality from corruption to mobile phone penetration and internet adoption. This shows that an increase in mobile phone penetration and internet adoption leads to decrease in corruption. The good governance and rule of law also found the powerful instruments to reduce the perceived corruption. This study is the first ever attempt to examine this issue for Asian Pacific countries, while other studies include only developing and advanced economies in their sample.
... It helps aspiring Fintech entrepreneurs to overcome the traditional barriers to explore opportunities (Gimpel et al., 2018). In Africa, the mobile technology is widely diffused (ITU, 2007) and its potential for economic development recognized (Aker and Mbiti, 2010;Bailard, 2009) which highlights the digital infrastructure African Fintech entrepreneurs are most likely to exploit or explore. ...
... Although historically Africa has been characterized by low-and poor-quality telecommunications penetration (Gebreab, 2002), during the 1990s and 2000s, it experienced the fastest growths of mobile communication (Aker and Mbiti, 2010). For example, "the average annual cellular expansion rate in Africa increased from 60 percent in the mid-90s to more than 100 percent in 2000" (Gebreab, 2002, p.4). Between 1999 and 2007, the growth of mobile phone subscribers outstripped by four-fold that of fixed line subscribers (Bailard, 2009). According to the ITU, 2007, p 2) "Mobile cellular technology has a higher coverage rate in the region. ...
Despite Africa's leadership in mobile money innovation and an increasing level of Fintech entrepreneurial activity, Africa's Fintech ecosystem trajectory is under-represented in the literature. This study is set out to redress this anomaly while addressing the tensions on the role of history, and adaptability in entrepreneurial ecosystem research. We draw upon the Fintech and the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature, analyze the views of practitioners, and apply temporal bracketing to reconstruct the historical context and three phases of the African Fintech ecosystem evolution over a decade: mobile money, digital finance, and innovative Fintech. Based on the results, we develop a model that explains the metamorphosis of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The study contributes an African narrative to the descriptive and explanatory knowledge of Fintech. By showing how Africa's Fintech entrepreneurial ecosystem has evolved, the study also contributes to the entrepreneurial ecosystems research that has thus far focused more on place, actors, and governance than evolution. Our model adds a dynamic perspective to the theorization of Fintech ecosystems and extends the existing literature by taking a historical and longitudinal foresight. Practitioners can apply the lessons to enhance polices that support future Fintech entrepreneurship.
... The problem of lack of transparency and accountability associated with rent-seeking opportunities that is at the root of the growth of the informal sector can be eradicated as a result of the development of access to ICT services. Bailard (2009) theorizes that the historical dearth of ICT in Africa has provided the elite with preferential ICT facilities. This has significantly limited transparency and accountability in the management of government offices. ...
... Data will be made available on request. Table 6 Pooled OLS results with ICT services exports Variables Dependent variable : Informal Economy Medina and Schneider (2017), 1991Elgin and Oztunali (2012), 1991-2009 (1) Note: Robust standard errors in parentheses, ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1. Country and time fixed effects are included but not reported. ...
This study investigates the effect of natural resource rents and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure on the size of the informal economy in Sub-Saharan African countries. It does so by using different measures of the informal economy, resources rents, and ICT and employs pooled OLS and IV-2SLS estimators to estimate two-way fixed effects models. The study covers 42 countries and spans the period 1991-2015. The results reveal that while natural resources rents increase the size of the informal economy, ICT has a mixed direct effect on the informal economy. More interestingly, the results reveal that resource rents reduce the size of the informal economy in countries with higher accessibility to ICT. African states need to ensure transparent management of natural resources revenues but also use these revenues to increase public spending to support growth and diversification to create more jobs in the formal sector. They should also invest more in ICT infrastructure to help mobilize domestic resources.
... First, most past diffusion studies are generally limited in scope by focusing on one region or similar economies or similar divisions (e.g. Bailard, 2009;Waarts and Van Everdingen, 2005). The limited scope of prior studies may be due to reasons such as a lack of access to global data, an expectation that results could differ across the globe due to a variety of factors not included in the study (e.g. ...
... Second, with the world moving towards sustainable and green technologies, it is vital to check whether past findings regarding the diffusion of new products (Dwyer et al., 2005) or generic technologies such as the Internet or cell phones (e.g. Andr es et al., 2010;Bailard, 2009;Wunnava and Leiter, 2009) apply to the diffusion of Sustainable New Technology-based Products (SNTP). The current paper utilizes sales data for electric and hybrid vehicles, technologies considered to be sustainable new technologies, hence widening the scope of technologies studied. ...
Purpose
Sustainability is increasingly becoming an essential aspect of technological innovations. In addition, the diffusion of sustainable new technology-based products appears to be uneven across the globe. The authors examine the effect of three country-level Hofstede measures of culture and two national-level innovation characteristics on the diffusion of Sustainable New Technology-based Products (SNTP).
Design/methodology/approach
Regression and Necessary Conditions Analysis were used to analyze a panel dataset of electric and hybrid vehicles sales from 2008 to 2017 across 89 countries.
Findings
Results suggest Long-Term Orientation (LTO) was correlated with SNTP diffusion, Indulgence (IVR) was partially correlated with SNTP diffusion and was also a necessary condition. Surprisingly, Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) was not correlated with SNTP diffusion. In addition, a national proclivity for developing innovations and a history of utilizing prior generic innovations were both correlated and necessary for SNTP diffusion.
Originality/value
This paper measures the impact of several macro-level variables (culture and other innovation related characteristics of countries) on SNTP diffusion. In addition to regression analyses to measure the average effect size, the authors conduct Necessary Conditions Analysis, which assesses the necessity of a variable for the outcome. These insights may help multinational companies better strategize entry decisions for international markets and aid governments in formulating more effective policies by recognizing and accommodating the influences of national culture and innovation attitudes.
... The first study by Snow (2009) found a negative link between the mobile penetration rate of a nation and perceived local corruption. A similar study by Matthias (2012) emphasized on the growing role of mobile and internet connectivity in associating accountability in Africa. ...
... Second, several investigations did not directly focus on using mobile phones as an instrument to increase the quality of government as well as democracy (see Gagliardone, 2015). Third, some findings have cautious policy implications because the empirical investigations are statistically not reliable such as Snow (2009) To achieve the study's objective, the paper structure is as follows: a review of theoretical issues and empirical issues in literature as a basis for the study is presented in the next section. The study further presents information about the data, estimation technique and other related methodological concerns associated with the study in section three. ...
In the quest for the attainment of democracy with its fully unleashed potentials, the role of information and communication technology (ICT) is integral within this current knowledge economy disposition. The study explores the effect of mobile technology penetration on governance quality from the unconditional and marginal effects of mobile phones and diverse democracy indicators. The analysis is carried out by applying the instrumental variables (IV) Tobit regression to the data to examine the relationship among the variables of interest with a view to handling possible endogeneity issues in the empirical model. The study finds that weak democracy is detrimental to the effect of mobile phone penetration on integrated governance quality and that the higher the mobile phone penetration, the lower the weak democracy quality in SSA. The study concludes by recommending efforts and policies to be enacted and implemented such as the enhancement of mobile technology for concise quality governance.
... Dada a amplitude das formas como a corrupção governamental pode materializar-se e, sobretudo, que está ocorre, via de regra, clandestinamente, há uma dificuldade inerente à sua mensuração, sendo normalmente operacionalizada pela literatura empírica de modo indireto, por meio da percepção dos indivíduos (Jain, 2001). Nesse aspecto, a exemplo da literatura empírica (Andersen et al., 2011;Bailard, 2009;Garcia-Murillo, 2010;Goel et al., 2012;Kock & Gaskins, 2014;Jha & Sarangi, 2014;Lio et al., 2011), como medida operacional da corrupção governamental se utilizou o CPI, publicado pela Transparência Internacional. Agregando dados de diferentes fontes, esse índice fornece percepções de homens de negócios e especialistas sobre o nível de corrupção no setor público. ...
... Essa relação direta negativa entre difusão da internet e corrupção governamental corrobora os resultados apresentados pela literatura empírica prévia (p. ex., Andersen et al., 2011;Bailard, 2009;Garcia-Murillo, 2010;Goel et al., 2012;Kock & Gaskins, 2014;Jha & Sarangi, 2014;Lio et al., 2011), reforçando a importância dos governos promoverem a difusão da internet como uma das estratégias efetivas de combate à corrupção. Lourenço, Nascimento, Sauerbronn e Macedo (2017, p. 30), analisando os determinantes sociais, econômico-financeiros, de controle social, pedagógicos e estruturais do Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica (IDEB), concluem que "no Brasil não há 'realmente uma sociedade de auditoria' como se observa em outros países". ...
Resumo Este artigo investiga as relações entre difusão da internet, voz e accountability, dimensão cultural, corrupção e eficácia governamental, por meio de análise entre países realizada com 117 nações no período de 2000 a 2014. Adotando a técnica de Análise Robusta de Caminho para a análise de dados, conclui-se que, independentemente dos efeitos das variáveis de controle, a difusão da internet promove menores níveis de corrupção governamental, uma relação que ocorre direta e indiretamente via mediação de voz e accountability, que, por sua vez, apresenta forte correlação com a corrupção governamental. A título de contribuição teórica, reforça-se a compreensão de que a internet constitui uma importante ferramenta de combate à corrupção, além de evidenciar o papel moderador da dimensão cultural na relação entre voz e accountability e corrupção governamental e, sobretudo, de incorporar a eficácia governamental ao modelo teórico.
... Dada a amplitude das formas como a corrupção governamental pode materializar-se e, sobretudo, que está ocorre, via de regra, clandestinamente, há uma dificuldade inerente à sua mensuração, sendo normalmente operacionalizada pela literatura empírica de modo indireto, por meio da percepção dos indivíduos (Jain, 2001). Nesse aspecto, a exemplo da literatura empírica (Andersen et al., 2011;Bailard, 2009;Garcia-Murillo, 2010;Goel et al., 2012;Kock & Gaskins, 2014;Jha & Sarangi, 2014;Lio et al., 2011), como medida operacional da corrupção governamental se utilizou o CPI, publicado pela Transparência Internacional. Agregando dados de diferentes fontes, esse índice fornece percepções de homens de negócios e especialistas sobre o nível de corrupção no setor público. ...
... Essa relação direta negativa entre difusão da internet e corrupção governamental corrobora os resultados apresentados pela literatura empírica prévia (p. ex., Andersen et al., 2011;Bailard, 2009;Garcia-Murillo, 2010;Goel et al., 2012;Kock & Gaskins, 2014;Jha & Sarangi, 2014;Lio et al., 2011), reforçando a importância dos governos promoverem a difusão da internet como uma das estratégias efetivas de combate à corrupção. Lourenço, Nascimento, Sauerbronn e Macedo (2017, p. 30), analisando os determinantes sociais, econômico-financeiros, de controle social, pedagógicos e estruturais do Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica (IDEB), concluem que "no Brasil não há 'realmente uma sociedade de auditoria' como se observa em outros países". ...
The relationship between Internet diffusion, voice and accountability, cultural dimension, corruption, and government effectiveness was investigated through a cross-country analysis of 117 countries from 2000 to 2014. Using Robust Path Analysis as a data analysis technique, it is concluded that, regardless of the effects of control variables, the diffusion of the Internet promotes lower levels of government corruption, occurring directly and indirectly through voice mediation and accountability, which, in turn, presents a strong direct relationship with government corruption. The focus on theoretical contribution reinforces the idea that the Internet is an important tool in the fight against corruption, as well as highlighting the role of cultural dimension, the relationship between voice and responsibility and government corruption, and, above all, incorporating government action into the theoretical model.
... This study incorporates four control variables: Government intervention (gov) reflects the profound impact of public policy and resource allocation on economic resilience, characterized primarily by the ratio of general government fiscal expenditure to GDP [58]. Information infrastructure (info), the cornerstone of modern communication technologies, signifies the accessibility and utilization of these technologies [59], quantified specifically by the number of cell phone subscribers per capita. Green development (green) elucidates the influence of ecological sustainability on economic resilience [60], manifested conspicuously through the urban greening coverage rate. ...
As a key measure to realize Chinese-style modernization, the construction of new urbanization injects new vitality into China ‘s urban economic growth by building a modern industrial system, and it is also of great significance to improve urban economic resilience. This study examines data from 278 Chinese cities spanning the period 2006–2022, utilizing a multi-period Difference-in-Differences model and a moderating effect model to investigate the impact of new urbanization on cities' economic resilience. The findings indicate that the adoption of modern urbanization significantly enhances cities' economic resilience. Notably, when examined from the perspectives of geographical location, urban scale, urban agglomeration, and urban economic development level, the impact of new urbanization is particularly pronounced in the eastern region, small cities, non-urban agglomeration cities, and cities with lower levels of economic development. The mechanism test demonstrates that new urbanization affects cities’ economic resilience by fostering technological innovation and upgrading the industrial structure. Essentially, technological innovation and industrial restructuring serve as intermediaries in fortifying economic resilience through the implementation of new urbanization. As a result, recommendations are formulated to bolster the resilience of urban economies.
... Thus, the development of ICT is integral to enhancing the efficacy of fiscal policies within OIC countries. A similar perspective is documented by Snow (2009), emphasizing ICT's constraints in achieving transparency, fairness and accountability in the management of governmental affairs. ...
... When real cases cannot be easily identified or if the number of cases is quite low, prior research often uses surveys or indexes of corruption perceptions as a proxy of real corruption. In this vein, Bailard (2009) found a negative correlation between the influence of cell phones and the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 46 African countries, and Clausen et al. (2011) analysed the relationship between corruption and confidence in public institutions using the Gallup World Poll database for 103 countries. Perceptions of corruption have been used to associate corruption with lower levels of satisfaction with democracy (Pellegata and Memoli, 2016) and with a negative effect on political participation (Zheng et al., 2017). ...
... This is because a comparison can be easily made from one country's governance style to another, and disgruntled citizens can voice their opinions through the use of various ICT tools. Similarly, Snow (2009) theoretically corroborates prior studies that the use of mobile phones has helped put those in charge of governance in Africa in check, and democracy has enhanced the populace to exercise the freedom of speech that was silenced during prior regimes. This study takes this research a notch higher by delving deeper into the various types of democracy (egalitarian, deliberative, participatory, electoral, liberal) available in SSA and how the use of mobile phones through the invention of penetration of ICT has aided governance. ...
In the quest for the attainment of democracy with its fully unleased potential, the role of information and communication technology (ICT) is integral within this current knowledge economy disposition. The study explores the effect of mobile technology penetration on governance quality from the unconditional and marginal effects of mobile phones and diverse democracy indicators. The analysis is carried out by applying the instrumental variables (IV) Tobit regression to the data to examine the relationship among the variables of interest with a view to handling possible endogeneity issues in the empirical model. The study finds that weak democracy is detrimental to the effect of mobile phone penetration on integrated governance quality and that the higher the mobile phone penetration, the lower the weak democracy quality in SSA. The study concludes by recommending efforts and policies to be enacted and implemented such as the enhancement of mobile technology for concise quality governance.
Highlights
• A weak democratic system decreases the relevance of mobile technology in the SSA region.
• Higher mobile phone penetration implies improved democracy quality in SSA.
• Thresholds exist that should not be exceeded for the various weak democracy classifications.
• Weak liberal democracy’s threshold is higher than weak deliberative democracy’s threshold.
• Weak deliberative democracy’s threshold is higher than weak electoral democracy’s threshold.
... Information transfers have the ability to restrict and guide the behavior of politicians due to their constant fears that if such information comes to the awareness of citizens, it may actually be of negative consequences to them. It is also posited that the impacts of the burgeoning diffusion of information transfers in Africa have helped in the reduction of corrupt practices on the part of those in the political and bureaucratic public positions [21]. Among the role of social media is that it has served as a watchdog within the government itself and also among political parties without even talking of the citizens. ...
Overtime, the social media as contributed to the development of citizen's participation in government, as it has the potentials to create public awareness and interactions between people in a simple form and different means. Majority of citizens are users of one form of social media or the other in which they interact on daily basis and Nigeria have been experiencing bad leadership, corruption, and economic problems due to bad governance without citizen's consensus and consent. The objective of this paper is to access the role of social media on consensus and consent building in governance as citizen's full flagged participation will guarantee accountability, transparency and responsiveness in government. The paper made use of secondary sources of data. The paper recommends that free access to information, responsible journalism and citizen's participation will aid in governance building.
... When real cases cannot be easily identified or if the number of cases is quite low, prior research often uses surveys or indexes of corruption perceptions as a proxy of real corruption. In this vein, Bailard (2009) found a negative correlation between the influence of cell phones and the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 46 African countries, and Clausen et al. (2011) analysed the relationship between corruption and confidence in public institutions using the Gallup World Poll database for 103 countries. Perceptions of corruption have been used to associate corruption with lower levels of satisfaction with democracy (Pellegata and Memoli, 2016) and with a negative effect on political participation (Zheng et al., 2017). ...
... The study observes that corruption generates lower economic growth and exacerbates income inequality. Bailard (2009) investigated the potential influence of mobile phones on corruption in Africa. This is based on the hypothesis that mobile phones reduce corruption, as a result of decentralizing information and communication. ...
This chapter's main objective is to critically analyze the phenomenon of corruption in Africa, and in the process highlight some major cases of corruption in the continent, describe the evolutions of the phenomenon, as well as recommend some possible ways and mechanisms for fighting the menace. The study looks at figures from Transparency International and United Nations Human Development Index and juxtaposed them with the changing dynamics of corruption in Africa. The method of study is critical analysis of individual cases, Africa corruption ranking and reviews of relevant empirical literature dealing with corruption in Africa. The study also adopts phenomenology as a study tool. Thus, the study relied heavily on secondary sources of information. The summary of the findings of the chapter shows the problem of corruption in Africa as endemic; something that has entered all the major sectors of modern African society.
... Beyond social media and the internet, scholars assert that access to massive networks of people is intensified at unprecedented rates due to the widespread availability and accessibility of mobile phones across the world population (Bailard 2009). As costs of owning mobile phones continue to decrease over time, more people garner the ability to access messages with movement related pictures and video content without needing to access the internet (Tufekci and Wilson 2012). ...
In recent decades, anti-systemic movements feature new forms of communication for organizing efforts: the use of information and communication technologies. Research on information and communication technologies suggests that mobile phones and internet access have increasingly facilitated horizontal communication for anti-systemic movements across the world-system, creating space for rapid and instantaneous organization and mobilization. However, existing scholarship benefits from a critical evaluation of claims about horizontality by addressing the political economy of information and communication technologies from a world-systems analysis perspective. Specifically, information and communication technology devices and platforms—from cellphones to social media channels—are designed by powerful corporations that are often based in powerful core and semi-periphery nations. The majority of these corporations are based in the hegemonic core of the United States. Within the present context of waning material resources across the world-system, these corporations profit from an online attention economy. Just as traditional material economies exploit the labor and natural resources from the periphery to extract wealth for core states, the attention economy exploits the psychologies and behaviors of periphery populations to extract wealth for core countries. Thus, some of the most powerful institutions in the world-system control the algorithms and structures where anti-systemic movements compete for peoples’ attention. This study utilizes the Mass Mobilization Data Project 1990-2018 historical dataset to determine which kinds of anti-systemic movements thrive as information and communication technology access expands globally. Using population-averaged negative binomial panel models on protest counts, I determine that as information and communication technologies expand, anti-systemic movements that are unlikely to threaten U.S. hegemony thrive, and conversely, anti-systemic movements that pose serious threats to U.S. hegemony and the present capitalist world-system are stifled. To unpack these findings, I draw from the cultural political economy approach, a framework that describes how some imaginations become a zeitgeist over competing imaginations for economic and political realities.
... The Christian Michelsen Institute (CMI) and TI (2012) provided some insight on how mobile phones could help detect or deter corruption. The report suggests ways in which mobile phones and camera/satellite technologies could help corruption reduction by facilitating social accountability and mobilization (Mexico), communication and citizen-to-government interaction (South Africa), budget tracking (Kenya), whistleblowing and reporting (Panama and Georgia), and land transfer transaction monitoring (Pakistan) (Bailard, 2009;Fung et al., 2010;Hellström, 2010). Examples include "community monitoring of health and education services, public monitoring of budgets, and contrasting performance between government bodies in different districts (TI, 2012)." ...
Corruption is a social evil that resonates far and deep in societies, eroding trust in government, weakening the rule of law, impairing economic development, and exacerbating poverty, social tension, and inequality. Each phase of infrastructure development life cycle has peculiar vulnerabilities to corrupt practices. Pre-emptive identification of avenues for corrupt actions at each phase can serve as a starting point for new initiatives or for renewed reinforcement of existing corruption mitigation programs. The existing literature on corruption does not address the issue from an infrastructure life cycle perspective. The objective of this paper is to identify opportunities at each phase of the infrastructure life cycle where stakeholders and actors can help undertake specific actions to mitigate corruption. The paper’s methodology characterizes corruption and mitigation measures in a framework based on the phases of infrastructure development life cycle and then connects these measures to the relevant actors and stakeholders.
... Bologna (2014) aborda el concepto de alfabetización digital y sugiere que existe una correlación negativa entre la alfabetización digital y la corrupción. Finalmente, Bailard (2009) apoya esa idea mediante el uso del teléfono móvil, y afirma que la descentralización de la información disminuye las oportunidades de corrupción. ...
https://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/1901
Este informe busca contribuir al estado del arte que vincula los conceptos de digitalización e integridad, y propone una estructura de política pública basada en la adopción de innovaciones digitales para la prevención, detección e investigación de fenómenos de corrupción. La irrupción de la tecnología en el espacio de la integridad tiene, por lo menos, tres grandes mecanismos de acción: 1. A través de la expansión del acceso a la información y la apertura de datos, los ciudadanos tienen mayor información sobre sus derechos en la interacción con sus Gobiernos. 2. El avance del gobierno digital permite la simplificación de los procesos administrativos, y la racionalización de la política regulatoria y las infraestructuras de datos abiertos. 3. El uso de técnicas de análisis de datos como dispositivos anticorrupción por parte de los actores de la integridad dentro y fuera del Gobierno.
... Where real cases are not easily identified or if the number of cases is quite low, prior research often uses surveys or some indexes with corruption perceptions as a proxy to obtain determinants of corruption. In this vein, Bailard (2009) finds a negative correlation between the influence of cell phones and the corruption perception index (CPI) issued by transparency corruption in 46 African countries. Clausen et al. (2011) analyse the relationship between corruption and confidence in public institutions using the Gallup World Poll database for 103 countries. ...
Within the framework of European Union, the corruption problem generates economic losses every year that slow down the continent´s development. The public procurement procedure is one of the sectors affected by this phenomenon of corruption, and the European Union is working to implement mechanisms that prevent and avoid fraudulent behaviour. In this sense, the institution has decided to replace the classic “lowest price” award criterion with the currently in force “most economically advantageous offer” or MEAT. This study seeks to identify red flags, that is, fraud risk indicators, relating them to the different award criteria used in the process. The results shown on the European maps show that Denmark is vulnerable to the red flag of excessive duration, while Spain show risks in terms of the final value of contract. Ultimately, the behaviour of each country is different in public procurement procedures.KeywordsCorruptionEuropean UnionPublic procurementAward criteriaRed flags
... *, ** and *** denote significance 10%, 5% and 1% significance levels, respectively. Variables are described in Table 2. Africa, prior works have reported equivocal findings about the role of mobile phone penetration in combatting corruption (Asongu and Nwachukwu, 2016;Bailard, 2009;Kanyam et al., 2017). We do not examine this direct relationship in our study, but we leverage our findings to argue that the effect of mobile phones is reportedly contentious in previous studies because phones are less effective in information diffusion as compared to the internet. ...
There is significant research on the outcomes of corporate political activity (hereafter CPA). However, despite a few prior studies acknowledging the negative externalities of political activity, little attention has been paid to CPA’s dark side. In this paper, we draw on institutional and corporate governance insights to examine the relationship between CPA and bribery, which is arguably the greatest institutional failure in developing countries. Using pooled data from over 25,000 firms in 41 African countries, we find that lobbying and firm-level bribery are positively related. This relationship is weakened by in-country internet penetration and foreign ownership of firms. Taken together, the results suggest that business-government relations in weak institutional environments help to perpetuate corruption. They also suggest that internet penetration and foreign ownership help to illuminate the dark side of CPA. Leveraging this understanding, we make important contributions to the literature and highlight pertinent practical implications.
... The upshot of this growing body of research is that digital tools have wide-ranging social, political, and economic impact-including on economic growth (Qiang and Rossotto, 2009;Waverman et al., 2005); bridging the digital divide (Norris, 2001); social inclusion (Warschauer, 2003); services delivery such as education and health (Blaya et al., 2010;Khan and Ghadially, 2010); better governance, political well-being, and reduction of corruption (Asongu and Nwachukwu, 2019;Bailard, 2009;Bratton, 2013); economic and industrial development (Oyelaran-Oyeyinka and Lal, 2006); financial development (Asongu, 2013); increased market integration (Muto and Yamano, 2009); reduced transaction costs (Molony, 2006); the reduction of information asymmetries ; and enabling of enterprise development to allow firms to tap into global markets and generate new kinds of IT-based employment opportunities (Asamoah et al., 2020;Benner, 2006;Graham and Mann, 2013;Okpaku, 2006). Such has been the unwavering support for these technologies that ICT tools like mobile phones have been called 'the single most transformative technology for development' (Jeffery Sachs quoted from Cable News Network (CNN), 2011). ...
Only ten years ago, there were more internet users in countries like France or Germany than in all of Africa put together. But much has changed in a decade. The year 2018 marks the first year in human history in which a majority of the world’s population are now connected to the internet. This mass connectivity means that we have an internet that no longer connects only the world’s wealthy. Workers from Lagos to Johannesburg to Nairobi and everywhere in between can now apply for and carry out jobs coming from clients who themselves can be located anywhere in the world. Digital outsourcing firms can now also set up operations in the most unlikely of places in order to tap into hitherto disconnected labour forces. With CEOs in the Global North proclaiming that ‘location is a thing of the past’ (Upwork, 2018), and governments and civil society in Africa promising to create millions of jobs on the continent, the book asks what this ‘new world of digital work’ means to the lives of African workers. It draws from a year-long fieldwork in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda, with over 200 interviews with participants including gig workers, call and contact centre workers, self-employed freelancers, small-business owners, government officials, labour union officials, and industry experts. Focusing on both platform-based remote work and call and contact centre work, the book examines the job quality implications of digital work for the lives and livelihoods of African workers.
... Some European Union officials claim that new ICTs constitute "time portals" that will bring modernity to the people of the developing world (Graham, 2011). Mobile phones are also thought to help promote democracy through delivery of voter education (Aker et al., 2011), and to reduce corruption (Bailard, 2009). Others argue that these technologies enable economic "catch-up" through technological leapfrogging (Okpaku, 2006). ...
This chapter discusses what kind of strategies are needed to improve people’s e-skillsin Africa. A hybrid between technological and organizational skills, e-skills are becoming thecornerstone of human development in the 21st century. They allow ICT to be used to its fullextent— fostering economic growth, social inclusion, health and education services, andpoverty reduction. Hence, significant progress in e-skills development is possible in Africa, butit will require system-wide changes. Small-scale programs and local reforms often fail toachieve the desired large-scale effects. More equitable access, quality, relevance, andeffectiveness of e-skills development cannot depend solely on scaling up “best practices.”Attention needs to be paid to the governance environment in which e-skills programs takeplace
... Information transfers have the ability to restrict and guide the behavior of politicians due to their constant fears that if such information comes to the awareness of citizens, it may actually be of negative consequences to them. It is also posited that the impacts of the burgeoning diffusion of information transfers in Africa have helped in the reduction of corrupt practices on the part of those in the political and bureaucratic public positions [21]. Among the role of social media is that it has served as a watchdog within the government itself and also among political parties without even talking of the citizens. ...
Overtime, the social media as contributed to the development of citizen's participation in government, as it has the potentials to create public awareness and interactions between people in a simple form and different means. Majority of citizens are users of one form of social media or the other in which they interact on daily basis and Nigeria have been experiencing bad leadership, corruption, and economic problems due to bad governance without citizen's consensus and consent. The objective of this paper is to access the role of social media on consensus and consent building in governance as citizen's full flagged participation will guarantee accountability, transparency and responsiveness in government. The paper made use of secondary sources of data. The paper recommends that free access to information, responsible journalism and citizen's participation will aid in governance building.
... The problem of lack of transparency and accountability associated with rent-seeking opportunities that is at the root of the growth of the informal sector can be eradicated as a result of the development of access to ICT services. Bailard (2009) theorizes that the historical dearth of ICT in Africa has provided the elite with preferential ICT facilities. This has significantly limited transparency and accountability in the management of government offices. ...
This study investigates the effect of resource rents and ICT on the size of the informal economy in Sub-Saharan African countries. It does so by using different measures of the informal economy, resource rents, and ICT and employs pooled OLS and IV-2SLS estimators to estimate two-way fixed effects models. The results reveal that while natural resource rents increase the size of the informal economy, ICT has a mixed effect on the informal economy. More interestingly, the results reveal that resource rents reduce the size of the informal economy in countries with high levels of ICT access. These results suggest that SSA countries should invest more in ICT infrastructure in order to foster domestic resources mobilization.
... Although some have considered technology as being susceptible to manipulation by those who introduce it, a host of others has contended that introduction of technology to the electoral process is the quintessence of transparency and integrity. Progenitors of the technological approach, fondly called 'the open or the populist' (Farid 2008), have nuanced their argument on the use of information technology as a mechanism of freedom, transparency, and accountability of government (Diamond 2010;Farid 2008;Snow 2009). This perspective has broadly underscored the concept of 'liberation technology' developed by Larry Diamond. ...
The use of technological devices in the electoral process has been seen as the solution to electoral fraud and manipulations in many fledgling democracies in Africa. Technological innovations such as biometric devices have reinforced democratic quality of elections, ensuring electoral integrity in many countries in Africa. The study examines the uses of biometric technology in the 2015 elections in Nigeria. This paper argues that although these technological innovations encountered some change in the 2015 elections, these innovations enhanced the free and fair character, credibility and legitimacy of the 2015 elections when compared to previous elections since 1999 in Nigeria. While the paper adopted a qualitative research method it concludes on the need for INEC to undertake critical training of their officials, as well as rigorous education of the political elites on the efficient use of the card readers and the implication for democratic consolidation in Nigeria.
... increasing the potential for detecting criminal activity (Bailard 2009). TACT research supports more informed solutions by encouraging policies that recognise the interdependence of digital technology, its users, and the social environment. ...
Digital platforms are used by entrepreneurs globally and have changed the way entrepreneurs interact. However, while digital platforms are expected to change the processes and practices of entrepreneurship their influence on entrepreneurship is insufficiently examined. When influence is considered, culture and social norms are usually ignored, and it is assumed that digital technology can and should be used to overcome barriers entrepreneurs face. Existing research also tends to focus on developed countries and high-growth entrepreneurship. This leaves a gap in our understanding of developing countries and low-growth entrepreneurship, which represents most entrepreneurial activity. This study asks questions about the influence of digital platforms on entrepreneurship in the context of Trinidad and Tobago, a high-income, developing Caribbean country. This multicultural, twin-island state has low levels of high-growth entrepreneurship and is attempting to diversify its oil and gas economy through supporting entrepreneurship.
The research takes an interdisciplinary, multi-method, qualitative approach that includes a pilot study, interviews, focus groups and secondary data. It finds that when entrepreneurs use digital platforms, the benefits accrued are in tension with platform rules that continuously change creating uncertainty, unpredictability and risk. Additionally, culture, social norms and historical structures may limit the potential for entrepreneurs to use digital platforms or capitalise on their benefits. This research contributes to the Technology Affordances and Constraints Theory (TACT) literature, which informs the research method. TACT is used to illustrate how affordances and constraints co-exist and intertwine with societal norms, cultures and structures to influence entrepreneurial activities and outcomes. Additionally, the research adopts the concept of entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) to provide new insight into the extent to which digital platforms may influence an informal and fragmented EE.
This study provides recommendations to the Trinidad and Tobago government which should help them to understand the influence of digital platforms, that simultaneously aid and mitigate their efforts to support entrepreneurship. For entrepreneurs, it provides recommendations that support a deeper understanding of digital platform use.<br/
... Such poor infrastructure is abysmal when compared to developed countries such as the United States where more than 74% of the population is connected to the Internet [48]. Amazingly, the use of other forms of ICTs such text messaging has proliferated as more than 77% of the Kenyan population own mobile telephones [12,47,48,49,50]. However, most e-government systems are heavily PC and Internet based. ...
Electronic government (e-government) provides a common infrastructure and direction across the public sector. It enhances collaboration within and among public sector organizations between Government and the business community, and between government and their citizens. Successful e-government depends on how well the targeted users (citizens) make use of the services. Kenya ranks very lowly on citizen usage of e-government systems, having been ranked by a UN report in 2010 with an e-readiness index value of 0.33. This is below the world average of 0.42, which makes Kenya better than only 60 other countries in the world. To implement and utilize modern and innovative technology, it requires that the government as well as citizens be e-ready, hence the need to evaluate their readiness for e-governance. Several research findings reveal that a high index may be only indicating that a country is e-ready in terms of Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and info-structure, institutions among others which is a very poor measure of the e-readiness of citizens. The aim of this paper is to investigate e-readiness factors in the context of Kenya's e-government systems. Adesktop survey was used and findings indicate that e-readiness can be hampered if the users are not considered. This means that for any government to successfully implement any e-government initiative, the citizen should be well prepared to use the systems.
... In instances where the primary principle, such as government, strive to keep its traditional information monopoly, ICTs can facilitate horizontal crowd sourcing of information and bypass government attempts to control flows of information. Crowed sourced information allows citizens' to performs oversight in the case where both principle, as in elected officials and public servants as in lower level officials, fail to share essential information [33]. ICTs, most notably mobiles allows citizens to not only to share information and consequently threatens government officials' ability to take clandestine decisions outside rules and regulations, as well as mobilize against it. ...
Two theories, often presented as bifurcated, dominate attempts to understand corruption in the social sciences: collective action and principal-agent. Both theories seek to explain when and why corruption happens, as well as how it can be addressed. With the ICT4D field often criticized for being under-theorized, the following study explores which theories are drawn upon to understand ICTs as an anti-corruption tool in developing countries. Through a literature review of 20 years of IS and ICT4D research, the study analyses 19 peer reviewed journal articles’ theoretical underpinnings together with methodological approaches as well theoretical contribution. The results find that even if a few studies declare some, often only cursory, theoretical underpinnings and influences, they infallibly fail to present a theoretically informed analytical framework detailing ICTs contribution to anti-corruption. In conclusion, with most of the papers containing no theoretical references, the field is still clearly struggling with theory. The article discusses the benefits with appropriating theory, such as principal-agent and collective action as well as more critical approaches to un-pack ICTs contribution to anti-corruption efforts.
... It is necessary a complex combination of technical, legal, social, organizational and behavioral measures, provided the same technology tools that are used to deal with corruption can be used to create new vulnerabilities. The decentralization of information leads to diminishing corruption opportunities [154], and digital transformation makes governmental policy systems smarter and more evidence-based. Digitalization increases the 'digital trail', which in turn could lead to a higher chance of getting caught in the act of performing corrupt practices [155]. ...
This paper presents the main messages of a South American expert roundtable (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of digital transformation. The input of the ERT comprised 39 propositions from 20 experts representing 11 different perspectives. The two-day ERT discussed the main drivers and challenges as well as vulnerabilities or unseens and provided suggestions for: (i) the mechanisms underlying major unseens; (ii) understanding possible ways in which rebound effects of digital transformation may become the subject of overarching research in three main categories of impact: development factors, society, and individuals; and (iii) a set of potential action domains for transdisciplinary follow-up processes, including a case study in Brazil. A content analysis of the propositions and related mechanisms provided insights in the genesis of unseens by identifying 15 interrelated causal mechanisms related to critical issues/concerns. Additionally, a cluster analysis (CLA) was applied to structure the challenges and critical developments in South America. The discussion elaborated the genesis, dynamics, and impacts of (groups of) unseens such as the digital divide (that affects most countries that are not included in the development of digital business, management, production, etc. tools) or the challenge of restructuring small-and medium-sized enterprises (whose service is digitally substituted by digital devices). We identify specific issues and effects (for most South American countries) such as lack of governmental structure, challenging geographical structures (e.g., inclusion in high-performance transmission power), or the digital readiness of (wide parts) of society. One scientific contribution of the paper is related to the presented methodology that provides insights into the phenomena, the causal chains underlying "wanted/positive" and "unwanted/negative" effects, and the processes and mechanisms of societal changes caused by digitalization.
... Thus, research results have shown that mobile penetration will reduce corruption in Africa by decentralizing control over information and communication. Therefore, this reduces the likelihood that individuals will engage in corrupt acts, thereby increasing the risk of exposure and sentencing (Bailard, 2009). ...
The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of the mobile phone penetration rate on inequality in Western Balkan countries and to provide empirical evidence. We explore the question of whether cell phone diffusion helps to decrease inequality and whether it has a positive income equality effect. In the developed conceptual framework, we consider that people with access to mobile telephony also have access to Wi-Fi and GPS and that individuals can perform different activities, such as engaging in e-commerce, e-governance, health, and education; paying bills; saving money; and transferring money to other persons. This represents a good foundation for poor persons exit the cycle of deprivation and leads to the development of equal opportunities. We analyse the impact of mobile phone penetration on inequality in Western Balkan countries by using ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares models (Asongu, 2015). Our results confirm the income-redistributive effect of mobile phone penetration.
... Therefore, ICT development is imperative to enhance the effectiveness of policies developed to minimize corruption in the context of OIC countries. Further Bailard (2009) indicated that ICT development improves transparency and accountability in management of government affairs. Given the role of ICT in corruption and economic growth nexus, we intend to empirically examine the role of ICT in explaining the association between corruption and economic growth in context of OIC member countries. ...
... Bailard [18] finds a significant correlation between higher mobile phone penetration and lower levels of perceived corruption in 46 African countries. Bailard suggest that mobile's main contribution lies in the ability to directly challenge government's traditional information monopoly. ...
Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa suffer from endemic corruption, which disrupts development efforts. Although ICTs is no magic wand, several studies indicate that ICT can serve as an important tool for combatting corruption by increasing transparency, and enable citizens to hold public officials accountable. Anti-corruption efforts are however dependent on strong political will and rule of law to be successful. A policy typically contains description of government intentions formulated into concrete objectives, as well as the rationale behind government targets. Furthermore, policies guide programmatic responses. The aim of this study is to explore how ICTs’ anti-corruption potential have been understood at the policy level over time in ICT policies from nine Sub-Saharan African countries between 2000 and 2018. The study concludes that although there are signs of a growing understanding of ICTs as a multi-purpose tool for anti-corruption towards the end of the period, most policies fail to produce a comprehensive and explicit narratives as well as statements affirming political will. The policy environment’s development trajectory, albeit positive, thus leaves room for improvement in terms highlighting ICTs potential contributions.
... Our article speaks to the literature on the relation between the Internet and governance. Existing research has found that the Internet can help strengthen government accountability (Besley & Burgess, 2002) and reduce corruption (Bailard, 2009), but may also suppress voter turnout (Campante, Durante, & Sobbrio, 2013) and increase ideological polarization (Lelkes, Sood, & Iyengar, 2017). On the issue of political inequality, more specifically, empirical findings from survey-based studies in advanced democracies (the United States in particular) tend to support the view that the Internet will reinforce, rather than alleviate, the participation and influence gaps in the offline world (Norris, 2001;Schlozman, Verba, & Brady, 2010). ...
Internet‐based platforms are increasingly being used by governments around the world to facilitate public engagement with citizens. However, it remains an open question whether participation through these platforms can actually enable citizens to influence policies. We address this question by studying the patterns and consequences of online participation at a major electronic petition platform in China, a country with the world's largest Internet‐using population. Content analysis of over 900,000 petitions reveals that a substantial share of them concern lower‐class issues and are originated from less developed rural and suburban areas. Linking variations in petition volumes to an original data set of government policy priorities, we further show that online participation led governments to place greater emphasis on social welfare policies and to increase the coverage of a key low‐income assistance program. These results underscore the potential of online participation as an important mechanism to improve the quality of governance.
The objective of this study is to assess the two-way relationship between the level of public sector digital governance and corruption in a sample of African countries. We use a multilevel mixed-effects regression model on data from the World Bank and Transparency International between 2020 and 2022. Previous literature has evaluated the effect of government digitization on institutional quality. However, because of the high level of corruption in African countries, this study is the first to also assess the effect of corruption on the development of digitized public governance systems. The results show that the development of digital governance has a significantly negative bidirectional relationship with corruption. All the digital governance indices have a negative relationship with the level of corruption. Despite this, corruption does not significantly affect the quality of the digital public service allocated and citizens’ commitment to using digital procedures.
Background: As countries at global and regional levels work towards achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, which emphasises the establishment and promotion of strong and inclusive institutions, there is a growing urgency to harness the power of information and communications technology (ICT) penetration in order to accomplish this objective. Hence, the rational for this study.
Aim: The institutional quality effect of ICT penetration (ICTP) is investigated at global and regional levels.
Setting: Annual panel data for 183 countries spanning 2003–2021 are utilised. The countries were further disaggregated to five major regions.
Method: We applied the Two-Step System-Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) estimation approach that incorporate forward orthogonal deviations to achieve the objective of the study.
Results: The results of the SGMM analysis demonstrate a statistically significant and positive effect of ICTP on institutional quality at the global level. However, the effect varies significantly at the regional level.
Conclusion: Overall, considering the inclusion of other control variables in the estimations, it is indicated that global and regional governments, as well as policymakers, could accelerate the achievement of institutional quality by strategically harnessing the potential of ICTP.
Contribution: This study makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature by revealing the impact of ICTP on institutional quality at both global and regional levels. To address endogeneity concerns, the Two-Step SGMM methodology is employed, offering a robust analytical framework for analysis.
This paper analyses the steady-state effect of business corruption penalties on economic growth, corruption and welfare. To that end, the baseline horizontal R&D growth model is extended to include corruption, which is generated in intermediate goods production. Taxation on corruption depresses profits in production but also wages, leading to labor being reallocated from production to R&D, and, therefore, to a higher economic growth rate. Moreover, it also reduces corruption and increases welfare if preferences towards a corruption-free environment are strong enough. The results are in line with the data observed for 15 EU countries.
Although an active body of literature exists on the relationship between government size and corruption, different findings proliferate the literature due to the nuances of geographical context, methods, and variables employed. The paper employs the novel method of moment quantile regression with fixed effects over the period 1984–2018 to investigate the dynamic impact of government size and press freedom on corruption in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The main contribution is to examine the impact of government size and press freedom across the conditional distribution of corruption in SSA. The findings show that the impacts of government size and press freedom are heterogeneous across the conditional quantile distribution of corruption. Among the most corrupt countries in SSA, larger government size and press freedom significantly increase corruption. Some policy recommendations are offered based on these findings.
We examine the effects of mobile phone coverage on violent conflicts in Africa using a new monthly panel dataset on mobile phone coverage at 55x55km grid cell levels for 32 African countries covering the period from 2008 to 2018. The base rate of a conflict event in a month across our data set is 0.0039 with a standard deviation of 0.0620. We find that access to mobile phone coverage increases the probability of a conflict occurring in the next month by 0.0028. This finding is robust to a suite of sensitivity checks including the use of various specifications and alternative datasets. We examine heterogeneity on the impact of mobile phone coverage across state-based conflict, non-state-based conflict and one-sided conflict, and find that our results are being driven by non-state conflicts. We examine economic growth as a channel through which mobile phone coverage influences conflict. In doing so, we construct new satellite data for night-time light activity as a proxy for economic growth. We find that economic activity is a channel through which mobile phone coverage influences conflicts, and that higher economic growth weakens the positive effect of mobile phone coverage on conflict.
The paper analyzes the methods of gamification in the practices of civic and political participation and it identifies research questions about the problems and prospects of this trend of social inclusion. Gamification creates a new experience of political actors, be it a leader, a political consultant or a representative of the masses; a review of the research allows us to clarify the actual “growth points” of social analytics of gamification. Particular attention is paid to cases related to game mechanics of urban participation, immersive journalism and the use of digital resources by political technologists in election campaigns. The analysis of the scientific discussion about urban participatory democracy revealed that the success of these practices is influenced not only by political will of the coordination potential of the local social structure but also by autonomy and financial capabilities of a political organization interested in civil participation and the design of the participation process. The possible examples of immersive journalism and its gamified product, newsgames, in Russian realities are such information resources as “Lentach” and “Meduza”. New digital products are actively used by politicians and political technologists at the federal and regional levels. In conclusion, the authors discussed the phenomena of interpassivity.
Generalizability is the goal for scientists (both social and natural). In the social sciences invoking generalizability is more problematic as it is often based on assessment of a mainstream population, but may not apply to groups outside of the mainstream. This is a significant challenge to developing appropriate policy and interventions suitable for Other groups. An example is given of how this concern was overcome through consideration of the Voice Of the Customer (VOC) and utilizing cognitive maps to consider the challenge of diabetes in two Canadian First Nations Communities. An understanding of the limits to generalizability is important in cases where cultural, geographical, or political differences exist. This is not only an important consideration for practitioners in search of successful interventions, but also academics trying to understand and contribute to knowledge in a variety of fields; including the diffusion and adoption of innovation.
O impacto das tecnologias digitais na esfera política e nas instituições democráticas tornou-se, nos últimos anos, um dos eixos principais de pesquisas relacionadas às áreas de comunicação, internet e democracia. O argumento central no debate é que as tecnologias, dispositivos e ambientes digitais oferecem suporte que ajuda na correção, no reforço ou no aperfeiçoamento dos regimes democráticos contemporâneos. A popularização da internet móvel e de suas ferramentas de acesso (principalmente, smartphone) não passa despercebido por instituições e atores políticos, que cada vez mais buscam desenvolver versões mobile de iniciativas digitais para diferentes fins democráticos como provimento de informações, prestação de serviços públicos e interação com os cidadãos. Com o objetivo de delinear e caracterizar o fenômeno no contexto brasileiro, a pesquisa desenvolve e aplica categorias específicas a fim de classificar 121 aplicativos disponíveis no Guia de Aplicativos do Governo Federal. Ao fim, o artigo apresenta etapas ou direções de caracterizam o uso de aplicativos móveis para fins democráticos.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate loan price and quantity effects of information sharing offices with information and communication technology (ICT), in a panel of 162 banks consisting of 42 African countries for the period 2001–2011.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical evidence is based on a panel of 162 banks in 42 African countries for the period 2001–2011. Misspecification errors associated with endogenous variables and unobserved heterogeneity in financial access are addressed with generalized method of moments and instrumental quantile regressions.
Findings
The findings uncover several major themes. First, ICT when integrated with the role of public credit registries significantly lowered the price of loans and raised the quantity of loans. Second, while the net effects from the interaction of ICT with private credit bureaus (PCBs) do not improve financial access, the corresponding marginal effects show that ICT could complement the characteristics of PCBs to reduce loan prices and increase loan quantity, but only when certain thresholds of ICT are attained. The authors compute and discuss the policy implications of these ICT thresholds for banks with low, intermediate and high levels of financial access.
Originality/value
This is one of the few studies to assess how the growing ICT can be leveraged in order to reduce information asymmetry in the banking industry with the ultimate aim of improving financial access in a continent where lack of access to finance is a critical policy syndrome.
In the previous issue of this journal (ROAPE 84), the author argued that international anti‐corruption efforts created conflicts between aid donors and African debtor governments because they attacked the ability of local interests to control and appropriate state resources. The control of corruption is an essential element in the legitimation of liberal democracy and in the promotion of global markets. However, it also threatens the local accumulation of wealth and property (dependent as it is on access to the state) in post‐colonial Africa. This article explores another dimension of this problem, namely the way in which clientelist forms of political mobilisation have promoted corruption and intensified crisis. Clientelism has been a key mechanism through which political interests have built the electoral support necessary to ensure access to the state's resources. In turn, it has shaped a politics of factional competition over power and resources, a politics obsessed with the division of the political spoils. The article argues that this process is not unique to Africa. What is different, however, is that factional conflict and its attendant corruption have had such devastating consequences. This reflects the particular forms which clientelism has taken on the continent. There is a need, it concludes, to find ways to shift African politics towards issues of social justice and government performance and away from a concern with a division of the state's resources.
This paper analyzes the public expenditure flows from the line ministries in Ghana to the basic service provision facilities, including primary and junior secondary schools, and health clinics. The study is mainly based on the data collected from a pilot public expenditure tracking survey (PETS) in 2000. A review of public expenditure distribution systems shows that the recording procedures for salary and non- salary expenditures are different. Salary expenditure is recorded in terms of cedis, from Ministry of Finance down to the public employees, who receive the salaries. Non-salary expenditures, although recorded in terms of cedis at the line ministry level, are largely distributed to the district offices and facilities in form of materials, with no monetary values indicated. This disconnect in the recording systems gives little local accountability of the higher level offices and provides few opportunities for the facilities to give feed back on their needs in resource allocation. The results from PETS data indicates that only about 20 percent of non-salary public health expenditure and 50 percent of non-salary public education expenditure reached the facilities. In health sector, evidences suggest that a large proportion of the leakage occurred between the line ministries and the district offices, where the public expenditures are turned into materials from cash flows. Based on our analysis of the tracking survey data, we conclude that a consistent and transparent recording system from the line ministries to the service provision facilities may significantly improve the efficiency of public resource distribution by providing easy public access to the resource flow data.
Why is government corruption more pervasive in some societies than in others? In this article we examine public choice explanations that attribute corruption to a lack of competition in either political or economic arenas or both. The principal part of our analysis draws on recently-published data about levels of corruption for a broad cross-section of countries reported for the early 1980s. We supplement this with an additional analysis of a second dataset on corruption measured during the late 1980s. Our analyses confirm that political competition affects level of corruption, but this effect is nonlinear. Corruption is typically lower in dictatorships than in countries that have partially democratized. But once past a threshold, democratic practices inhibit corruption. However, we obtained mixed results with respect to the relationship of economic competition and corruption: government size does not systematically affect corruption, but membership of the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) does. Finally, corruption is more pervasive in low-income countries which tend to underpay public sector employees.
Corruption is attracting a lot of attention around the world. This paper surveys and discusses issues related to the causes, consequences, and scope of corruption, and possible corrective actions. It emphasizes the costs of correction in terms of economic growth. It also emphasizes that the fight against corruption may not be cheap and cannot be independent from the reform of the state. If certain reforms are not made, corruption is likely to continue to be a problem regardless of actions directly aimed at curtailing it. Copyright 1998, International Monetary Fund
Legislators in modern democracies accept bribes that are small compared to the value of the statutes they pass and allow bans against bribery to be enforced. In the authors' model of bribery, rational legislators accept bribes smaller not only than the benefit the briber receives but than the costs the legislators incur in accepting the bribes. Rather than risk this outcome, the legislators may be willing to suppress bribery altogether. The size of legislatures, the quality of voter information, the nature of party organization, and the structure of committees will all influence the frequency and size of bribes. Copyright 1994 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
Why is corruption-defined here as the misuse of public office for private gain-perceived to be more widespread in some countries than others? Different theories associate cross-national variation in the extent of corruption with particular historical and cultural traditions, levels of economic development, political institutions, and government policies. This article analyzes which of various plausible determinants are significantly related to several indexes of "perceived corruption" compiled from business risk surveys for the early-1980s and mid-1990s. It finds support for six arguments. Countries with Protestant traditions, histories of British rule, more developed economies, and (probably) those with high exposure to imports were rated less "corrupt". Federal states were more "corrupt" than unitary ones. While the current degree of democracy was not significant, long exposure to democracy was associated with lower corruption.
In order to understand the self-reinforcing downward spiral of political decay and economic deterioration in Ghana since 1975, the liberal political economy explanation, as presented most notably by Robert Bates, must be supplemented with a view of government as a highly personalist (or neo-patrimonial) machine, seeking to benefit individual favourites or networks of clients with varying degrees of concern for larger social aggregates. The economic and political debacle that extended into the early 1980s is examined. Tentative suggestions are offered to explain the adoption by Rawlings of the IMF-supported economic recovery plan, and to account for the survival of the regime in the face of opposition from those groups adversely affected by the cost of economic recovery. -G.P.Hollier
In recent years, economists have come to recognize that corruption is not just an aberration or a nuisance; it is a systemic feature of many economies, which constitutes a significant impediment to economic development. The authors present an overview of the literature on the causes and consequences of corruption and briefly comment on some policy issues, drawing on recent research, including their own.
African countries have recently experienced an extraordinary and largely unanticipated
boom in the uptake of mobile phones, and increasing rates of access to the internet. This
thesis investigates how and why these information and communication technologies (ICT)
are being adopted for use in Tanzanian micro and small enterprises (MSEs), and explores the
changes they are bringing about to the existing business culture of marginalised economies.
The study covers three sub-sectors of the Tanzanian economy: perishable foodstuffs trading,
the informal construction industry and the export of African blackwood carvings. The
analysis is based on fieldwork undertaken over a total of 15 months in 2002 and 2003, during
which time business networks were revealed by physically following entrepreneurs and their
contacts operating in different locations throughout the country. Entrepreneurs were asked to
draw their own comparisons between the traditional pre-ICT situation and the improved ICT
access of today. The discussion is informed by the findings of semi-structured interviews
with these individuals, excerpts of which are presented in the text to give voice to the
entrepreneurs.
Various ingenious and at times unconventional methods of access to, and appropriation of,
ICT is uncovered. Together these suggest that official indicators underestimate the thirst for
digital consumption, especially for mobile phones, and help explain the flourishing informal
economy of handset acquisition. Internet penetration and uptake for use in business, on the
other hand, is revealed to be far slower. Nevertheless, the research does reveal that a sizeable
amount of poorer entrepreneurs are using a triumvirate of hired or shared ICT – mobile
phones, the Internet and the ‘old’ ICT of fax – to create what can appear to be a more formal
enterprise than it may actually be. The ‘mobile office’ effectively allows poorer
entrepreneurs to operate without premises, thereby saving costs on rent and allowing the
enterprise to remain informal. This heralds a considerable change in the working practices of
a significant branch of informal sector operators who have gone unnoticed, and calls for a
reconstruction and redefinition of this crucial source of entrepreneurship in developing
economies.
Despite the huge uptake of mobile phones in particular, the work also cautions that some
traditional pre-ICT aspects of the African business culture look set to remain for some time.
It becomes clear that where entrepreneurs do decide to use ICT, reputation and
recommendation are still very significant. This information is usually passed on when an
entrepreneur meets in person with contacts from his very fluid informal networks of
knowledge. Trust, and the need for direct, personal interaction through face-to-face contact – one of the most pervasive features of African MSE economies – emerge as a common theme
across the case study industries and are likely to remain a crucial aspect of the way most
MSE business is conducted.
Mobile phones are seen to play a crucial role in improving the exchange of supply-anddemand
information domestically, while a combination of applications (particularly e-mail)
appear to act as tools with which to refresh relationships with sources of market information
outside the country. It is suggested that ICT may be able to help entrepreneurs in moving
from the personal to the impersonal exchange – a challenge that many other African
businesses will also have to come to terms with as the Internet becomes an ever more
important global trading tool.
In recent years, economists have come to recognize that corruption is not just an aberration or a nuisance; it is a systemic feature of many economies, which constitutes a significant impediment to economic development. The authors present an overview of the literature on the causes and consequences of corruption and briefly comment on some policy issues, drawing on recent research, including their own.
Among scholars the subject of corruption is nearly taboo. Placing it in a model of developing economy as a developing factor is even worse in some eyes. No doubt, Nathaniel H. Leff's analysis will be misunderstood. So be it. It still bids us to understand an important area of social behavior, and tells us why public policies will fail. The author is at Harvard University.
The study of the causes and consequences of corruption has a long history in economics, dating back at least to the seminal contributions to the rent-seeking literature by Bhagwati (1982), Krueger (1974), Rose- Ackerman (1978), Tullock (1967), and others. However, empirical work in this area has been limited, partly because the efficiency of govern- ment institutions cannot easily be quantified. Corruption in particular is by its very nature difficult to measure. Renewed interest in the topic has led a number of researchers to attempt to quantify, using regression analysis and indices developed by private rating agencies, the extent to which corruption permeates eco- nomic interactions. These indices are typically based on replies to standardized questionnaires by consultants in a variety of countries and therefore have the obvious drawback of being subjective. Nevertheless, the correlation between indices produced by different rating agencies is very high, suggesting a certain consensus on the ranking of countries according to their degree of corruption. In addition, the high prices that the rating agencies charge their customers (usually multinational com- panies and international banks) for access to these indices are indirect evidence that the information is useful. At the same time, however, the consultantsí judgments that form the basis of these indices may be influenced by the economic performance of the countries they monitor. Thus, researchers who use such indices must be extremely cautious in asserting a causal relationship between Paolo Mauro is an economist at the International Monetary Fund, Washington. Helpful conversa- tions with Andrei Shleifer and Vito Tanzi are gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed here are strictly personal. The author does not necessarily agree with the subjective indices relating to any given country.
Developing countries generally have low levels of Internet services, and as a result require different approaches to impact measurement than developed countries. A conceptual framework is proposed which accepts a role for technological innovation, but which rejects technological determinism. It recognizes that economic, social, political and cultural factors affect the penetration and use of the Internet. It emphasizes direct and indirect impacts of the Internet on people, while including impacts on institutions and the environmental factors and policies that affect institutional impacts. Ultimately the Internet is an induced innovation, but developing countries still suffer from the Matthew principle – that those who have most will be given still more. Impacts of the Internet range from communications cost savings, to changes in performance of individual businesses, NGOs, government agencies, and schools, to changes in performance of markets, to those measured in terms of economic growth, equity, health status, knowledge, and environmental quality. The overall view of the impacts of the Internet emerges (as does the picture in a jigsaw puzzle) from combining many studies of specific effects, each conveying a part of the picture. The majority of the people of the world live in low and middle income countries; they have the greatest need of the Internet to help solve the pressing problems of poverty, and they are the least prepared to use the technology and appropriate its benefits. Clearly great benefits are available to developing countries from appropriate uses of even their scarce Internet networks. Many of the institutions affected by the Internet are international. Internet impacts on these international institutions must be confronted. Thus developing countries may face significant risks from participation in international financial, labor and goods and services markets, because of significant gaps in connectivity and in knowledge and information. On the other hand, they may benefit greatly from power uses of the Internet abroad, of which Africans are scarcely aware, such as famine early warning and epidemiological alert systems. Donor agencies encourage the development of the Internet in developing countries, and especially in Africa. Several have agreed to work collaboratively to learn the lessons from their experience. Such efforts are important if the potential of the Internet is to be realized in developing countries, the risks inherent in the Internet are to be avoided or ameliorated, and the net effect to be enhanced equity and social and economic growth.
As far as corruption in Africa is both conspicuous and generalised,
it has
to be studied from the viewpoint of the participants. This article starts
with
six general theses on corruption in Africa, which place it within a broader
‘corruption complex’, and emphasise its routine nature, the
stigmatisation
of corruption despite the absence of effective sanctions, its apparent
irreversibility,
the absence of correlation with regime types and its legitimacy to
its perpetrators. Corruption is then shown to be socially embedded in ‘logics’
of negotiation, gift-giving, solidarity, predatory authority and redistributive
accumulation. Any anti-corruption policy must face up to these realities.
The recent prodemocracy movements have given new life to the struggle against corruption. With their greater scope for popular expression, they tend to be less compromising in their opposition to bribery and other blatantly dishonest practices than most of the earlier campaigns carried out "from above'. But it is unlikely that any particular measure or institutional form, even if benefiting from popular involvement and control, can eliminate corruption as such. In the midst of economic collapse and chaotic political change, new impulses and opportunities for theft and dishonesty are bound to arise. Over the longer term, only a profound transformation in social and political relations is likely significantly to weaken corruption's underlying causes, with their roots deep in Africa's dependent economic and state structures. -from Author
At the end of his suggestive political analysis of Nairobi, Herbert Werlin asserts that a major goal for Kenya politics “is to build up the basis for cooperation” (p. 197). Cooperation existed in Kenya under British colonialism; it exists in Britain today. Lack of cooperation at present makes it more difficult for Kenya and Nairobi to solve acute social and economic problems. For Werlin, cooperation requires an educated, public-spirited citizenry, a politically conscious, reform minded business class, and a corps of dedicated professional administrators (p. 197). Cooperation requires a modern social order which in American cities has functioned to encourage “good government”. But this very modern concept of cooperation tells us more about where Kenya and Nairobi ought to go than how they should get there.
Though corruption poses fundamental challenges to both democratic governance and market economies, political science research has only recently begun to address corruption in a comparative context. In this article we explain variation in the perceived level of corruption (defined as the misuse of public office for private gain) across fifty countries. We propose a set of hypotheses that explain variation in corruption levels in terms of domestic political-economic structure, democratic norms, integration into the international economy, and Protestant religious affiliation. Levels of corruption, we propose, are higher: (1) the lower the average income level, (2) the greater the extent of state control of the economy, (3) the weaker are democratic norms and institutions, (4) the lower the degree of integration in the world economy, and (5) the lower the share of the population with Protestant religious affiliation. The data analysis broadly confirms our predictions: in the multivariate regression, each of the independent variables is significant in the direction we expect.
There is considerable speculation about the correlation between investments in telecommunications and economic development. Mobile phones, by virtue of their role as carriers and conduits of information, ought to lessen the information asymmetries in markets, thereby making rural and undeveloped markets more efficient. This research tests this assumption using a case-study from India, where the fishing community in the south-western state of Kerala has adopted mobile phones in large numbers. We find that with the wide-spread use of mobile phones, markets become more efficient as risk and uncertainty are reduced; there is greater market integration; there are gains in productivity and in the Marshallian surplus (sum of consumer and producer surplus); and price dispersion and price fluctuations are reduced. The potential efficiencies are, however, subject to easy access to capital, without which the market remains less efficient than it could be. Finally, the quality of life of the fishermen improves as they feel less isolated, and less at risk in times of emergencies
Community-driven development (CDD) is being currently proposed as the main avenue to fighting poverty and circumventing the shortcomings of state-directed aid resources. One of the main difficulties in CDD programs lies in their vulnerability to capture by local elites. The paper discusses the possibility of mitigating this problem through a so-called leader-disciplining mechanism (LDM) that relies on a sequential disbursement procedure supported by a fraud detection mechanism. On the basis of the LDM framework, it is argued in particular that too quick and massive a rush on CDD may prove self-defeating in the sense that the share of aid resources actually reaching the poor will be low if donor agencies are impatient to achieve results.
Cell phones are quickly transforming markets in low-income countries. The effect is particularly dramatic in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, where cell phones often represent the first telecommunications infrastructure. Niger had approximately 2 landlines for every 1,000 people when mobile phones were first introduced in 2001. Since that time, mobile phone coverage has increased significantly throughout the country, with over 78 percent of markets covered by 2007. This working paper assesses the impact of mobile phones on grain market performance in one of the world’s poorest countries. Aker finds that the introduction of mobile phones is associated with a 20-percent reduction in grain price differences across markets, with a larger impact for markets that are farther apart and those that are linked by poor-quality roads. Cell phones also have a larger impact over time: as more markets have cell phone coverage, the greater the reduction in price differences. This is primarily due to changes in grain traders’ marketing behavior: cell phones lead to reduced search costs, more market information and increased efficiency in moving goods across the country. Aker concludes by outlining the ways in which information technology can be used as an effective poverty-reduction strategy in low-income countries.
A survey in Kigali, Rwanda, suggests that mobiles are allowing microentrepreneurs to develop new business contacts. The results detail the impact of mobile ownership on the social networks of microentrepreneurs in lowteledensity areas, focusing on the evolving mix of business and personal calls made by users. The study differentiates between the contacts amplified through mobile ownership (friends and family ties) and those enabled by mobile ownership (new business ties). The article discusses applicability of the results to settings beyond Rwanda.
When information is limited or costly, agents are unable to engage in optimal arbitrage. Excess price dispersion across markets
can arise, and goods may not be allocated efficiently. In this setting, information technologies may improve market performance
and increase welfare. Between 1997 and 2001, mobile phone service was introduced throughout Kerala, a state in India with
a large fishing industry. Using microlevel survey data, we show that the adoption of mobile phones by fishermen and wholesalers
was associated with a dramatic reduction in price dispersion, the complete elimination of waste, and near-perfect adherence
to the Law of One Price. Both consumer and producer welfare increased.
According to official statistics, 20 percent of Uganda's total public expenditure was spent on education in the mid-1990s,
most of it on primary education. One of the large public programs was a capitation grant to cover schools' nonwage expenditures.
Using panel data from a unique survey of primary schools, we assess the extent to which the grant actually reached the intended
end-user (schools). The survey data reveal that during 1991–1995, the schools, on average, received only 13 percent of the
grants. Most schools received nothing. The bulk of the school grant was captured by local officials (and politicians). The
data also reveal considerable variation in grants received across schools, suggesting that rather than being passive recipients
of flows from the government, schools use their bargaining power to secure greater shares of funding. We find that schools
in better-off communities managed to claim a higher share of their entitlements. As a result, actual education spending, in
contrast to budget allocations, is regressive. Similar surveys in other African countries confirm that Uganda is not a special
case.
This paper analyzes a newly assembled data set consisting of subjective indices of corruption, the amount of red tape, the efficiency of the judicial system, and various categories of political stability for a cross section of countries. Corruption is found to lower investment, thereby lowering economic growth. The results are robust to controlling for endogeneity by using an index of ethnolinguistic fractionalization as an instrument. Copyright 1995, the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This paper presents two propositions about corruption. First, the structure of government institutions and of the political
process are very important determinants of the level of corruption. In particular, weak governments that do not control their
agencies experience very high corruption levels. Second, the illegality of corruption and the need for secrecy make it much
more distortionary and costly than its sister activity, taxation. These results may explain why, in some less developed countries,
corruption is so high and so costly to development.
There is considerable speculation about the correlation between investments in telecommunications and economic development. Yet, there has been very little research on whether there is a connection between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and economic growth, and if indeed a connection can be established, how it works. Vast populations in developing countries live in rural areas and are subject to the vagaries of their highly inefficient markets. Mobile phones, by virtue of their role as carriers and conduits of information, ought to lessen the information asymmetries in markets, thereby making rural and undeveloped markets more efficient. This article tests this assumption using a case-study from India, where the fishing community in the southwestern state of Kerala has adopted mobile phones in large numbers.Using mobile phones at sea, fishermen are able to respond quickly to market demand and prevent unnecessary wastage of catch-fish being a highly perishable commodity-a common occurrence before the adoption of phones. At the marketing end, mobile phones help coordinate supply and demand, and merchants and transporters are able to take advantage of the free flow of price information by catering to demand in undersupplied markets. There is also far less wastage of time and resources in all segments of the fishing community. Fishermen spend less time idling on shore and at sea, whereas owners and agents go to the landing centers only when they receive information (via mobile phones) that their boats are about to dock. We find that with the widespread use of mobile phones, markets become more efficient as risk and uncertainty are reduced. There is greater market integration; there are gains in productivity and in the Marshallian surplus (sum of consumer and producer surplus); and price dispersion and price fluctuations are reduced. The potential efficiencies are, however, subject to easy access to capital, especially at the production end of the supply chain, without which the market remains less efficient than it could be. Finally, the quality of life of the fishermen improves as they feel less isolated and less at risk in emergencies. (c) 2007 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
We empirically test existing theories on the provision of public goods, in particular air quality, using data on sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations from the Global Environment Monitoring Projects for 107 cities in 42 countries from 1971 to 1996. The results are as follows: First, we provide additional support for the claim that the degree of democracy has an independent positive effect on air quality. Second, we find that among democracies, presidential systems are more conducive to air quality than parliamentary ones. Third, in testing competing claims about the effect of interest groups on public goods provision in democracies we establish that labor union strength contributes to lower environmental quality, whereas the strength of green parties has the opposite effect.
Mobile markets deny middlemen. BBC News Retrieved from http://news. bbc.co.uk/go Mobile communications in South Africa, Tanzania and Egypt: Results from community and business surveys
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Ross, W. (2004). Mobile markets deny middlemen. BBC News. Retrieved from http://news. bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/africa/3321167.stm Samuel, J., Shah, N., & Hadingham, W. (2005). Mobile communications in South Africa, Tanzania and Egypt: Results from community and business surveys. Vodafone Policy Paper Series, 2, 44–52.
Health and Education Financial Tracking Study
- Price Waterhouse
Price Waterhouse Coopers. (1999). Health and Education Financial Tracking Study. Report pre-pared for government of Tanzania.
Social impact of mobile telephony in Latin America Retrieved from the GSM Latin America Association Web site: http://www.gsmlaa.org/files Corruption and self-interest in Kampala and Nairobi
- Frost
- Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan. (2006). Social impact of mobile telephony in Latin America. Retrieved from the GSM Latin America Association Web site: http://www.gsmlaa.org/files/content/0/94/ Social%20Impact%20of%20Mobile%20Telephony%20in%20Latin%20America.pdf Greenstone, J. D. (1966). Corruption and self-interest in Kampala and Nairobi. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 8, 199–210.
Coincident revolutions and the emergent dictator's dilemma: Thoughts on communication and democratization
- C R Aragon
, C. R., with Aragon, J. (1997). Coincident revolutions and the emergent dictator's dilemma: Thoughts on communication and democratization. In J. E. Allison (Ed.), Technology, development, and democracy: International conflict and cooperation in the information age (pp. 105–130).
Cellphones catapult rural Africa to 21st century New York Times The economic and social benefits of mobile services in Bangladesh: A case study for the GSM Association Economic development through bureaucratic corruption
- S B Lafraniere
- S Sweet
- D Lewin
- J Sephton
- I Petini
LaFraniere, S. (2005). Cellphones catapult rural Africa to 21st century. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/international/africa/25africa.html?ex=1282622400& en=32b49363eac57aae&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss Lane, B., Sweet, S., Lewin, D., Sephton, J., & Petini, I. (2006). The economic and social benefits of mobile services in Bangladesh: A case study for the GSM Association. Retrieved from http:// www.dirsi.net/english/files/Ovum%20Bangladesh%20Main%20report1f.pdf Leff, N. (1964). Economic development through bureaucratic corruption. American Behavioral Scientist, 8(3), 8–14.
Indian politician's son guilty of model's murder. Free Republic. Retrieved from http://www.freerepublic.com Local capture evidence from a central government transfer program in Uganda
- S Rautray
- R Reinikka
- J Svensson
Rautray, S. (2006). Indian politician's son guilty of model's murder. Free Republic. Retrieved from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1755260/posts Reinikka, R., & Svensson, J. (2004). Local capture evidence from a central government transfer program in Uganda. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119, 679–706.
Africa's cellphone explosion changes economics, society. USA Today Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2005-10-16-africa-cellular_x.htm Ogendeji GSM operator supports fight against corruption. Network World A moral economy of corruption
- R Ngowi
Ngowi, R. (2005). Africa's cellphone explosion changes economics, society. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2005-10-16-africa-cellular_x.htm Ogendeji, O. A. (2008). GSM operator supports fight against corruption. Network World. Retrieved from http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/061608-gsm-operator-supports-fight-against.html Olivier de Sardan, J. P. (1999). A moral economy of corruption? Journal of Modern African Studies, 37, 25–52.
Rules vs. discretion: Public and private funding in Zambian basic education. Part 1: Funding equity
- Catie Snow
- Bailard Das
- J Dercon
- S Habyarimana
- J Krishnan
Catie Snow Bailard Das, J., Dercon, S., Habyarimana, J., & Krishnan, P. (2002). Rules vs. discretion: Public and private funding in Zambian basic education. Part 1: Funding equity. Washington, DC: World Bank.
In war-torn Congo, going wireless to reach home: For poor, cellphones bridge digital divide
- K Sullivan
Sullivan, K. (2006, July 9). In war-torn Congo, going wireless to reach home: For poor, cellphones bridge digital divide. Washington Post, p. A1.
The Internet and democracy: Global catalyst or democratic dud? Retrieved from http://cyber.law.harvard Determinants of a digital divide in Sub-Saharan Africa: A spatial-economteric analysis of cell phone coverage. (The World Bank pol-icy research working paper no. WPS 4516)
- M L Best
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- S Dasgupta
- T Thomas
- D Wheeler
Best, M. L., & Wade, K. W. (2005). The Internet and democracy: Global catalyst or democratic dud? Retrieved from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications Buys, P., Dasgupta, S., Thomas, T., & Wheeler, D. (2008). Determinants of a digital divide in Sub-Saharan Africa: A spatial-economteric analysis of cell phone coverage. (The World Bank pol-icy research working paper no. WPS 4516). Washington, DC: The World Bank Sustainable Rural and Urban Development Team, Development Research Group.
Africa's cell phone boom creates a base for low-cost banking. Christian Science Monitor
- N Itano
Itano, N. (2005). Africa's cell phone boom creates a base for low-cost banking. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0826/p07s01-woaf.html
The political economy of African personal rule
- R H Jackson
- C G Rosberg
- Reinikka R.