Corruption, innovation and firm growth: Firm-level evidence from Egypt and Tunisia

Micheline Goedhuys, Pierre Mohnen and Tamer Taha ()
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Tamer Taha: UNU-MERIT

No 2016-056, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: Using recently collected firm-level data from Egypt and Tunisia, this paper explores the effect of institutional obstacles and corruption on the innovative behaviour of firms and their effect on firms' employment growth. We estimate the micro-level interactions between corruption and institutional obstacles and test the hypothesis that corruption 'greases the wheels' of firm performance when bureaucratic procedures are more severe and hampering innovation. Accounting for endogeneity and simultaneity, the paper uses a conditional recursive mixed-process model (CMP). The results show that corruption has a direct negative effect on the likelihood that a firm is an innovator, but a positive effect when interacted with institutional obstacles. This provides support for the hypothesis that corruption serves as a mechanism to bypass the bureaucratic obstacles related to obtaining the necessary business permits and licences for product innovation. These effects also resonate into firm growth, through their effect on product innovation.

Keywords: Innovation; corruption; employment growth; Egypt; Tunisia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 L25 O12 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-10-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-ara, nep-bec, nep-ent, nep-ino, nep-law, nep-sbm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

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Journal Article: Corruption, innovation and firm growth: firm-level evidence from Egypt and Tunisia (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2016056

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