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Media freedom and democracy in the fight against corruption

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  • Bhattacharyya, Sambit
  • Hodler, Roland

Abstract

Democratization and media freedom have been suggested as useful tools in the fight against political corruption, but so far their interplay in this fight has received scant attention. We present a game theoretic model which allows for varying quality of media freedom and democratic institutions. The model predicts, among others, that democratization and media freedom are complements in the fight against political corruption. We test our theoretical predictions using differences-in-differences estimations and panel data covering 129 countries from 1980 to 2007. We find evidence of causal effects of democratization and media freedom on corruption, and that the two are complements. Our main results hold after controlling for income, country fixed effects, and continent-specific time-varying shocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Bhattacharyya, Sambit & Hodler, Roland, 2015. "Media freedom and democracy in the fight against corruption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 13-24.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:39:y:2015:i:c:p:13-24
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.03.004
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption; Media freedom; Democratization; Political institutions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government

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