An Empirical Study of Corruption in Ports

Sandra Sequeira and Simeon Djankov

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We generate an original dataset on bribe payments at two competing ports in Southern Africa that allows us to take an unusually close look at the relationship between bureaucratic organization, bribe-setting behavior and the costs corruption imposes on users of public services. We find that the way bureaucracies are organized can generate different opportunities for bureaucrats to engage in "collusive" or "coercive" types of corruption. We then observe how firms adjust their shipping and sourcing strategies in response to different types of corruption. "Collusive" corruption is cost-reducing for firms, increasing usage of the corrupt port, while "coercive" corruption is cost-increasing, reducing demand for port services. Our findings therefore suggest that firms respond to the opportunities and challenges created by different types of corruption, organizing production in a way that increases or decreases demand for the public service.

Keywords: Corruption; Transport; Trade Costs; Firm Behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D02 D21 D23 L91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-cse and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (50)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/21791/1/MPRA_paper_21791.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:21791

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().