Disclosure Standards, Auditing Infrastructure, and Bribery Mitigation

Using a sample of 15,174 firms from 24 countries included in the 2009 World Bank Enterprise Survey, we investigate the impact of disclosure standards and auditing infrastructure on the bribery of public officials to secure government contracts. We find that firms are less likely to grant gift to sec...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Khalil, Samer (Author) ; Saffar, Walid (Author) ; Trabelsi, Samir (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2015
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2015, Volume: 132, Issue: 2, Pages: 379-399
Further subjects:B Accounting transparency
B Business Ethics
B Corporate governance
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Description
Summary:Using a sample of 15,174 firms from 24 countries included in the 2009 World Bank Enterprise Survey, we investigate the impact of disclosure standards and auditing infrastructure on the bribery of public officials to secure government contracts. We find that firms are less likely to grant gift to secure a government contract in countries having more extensive financial reporting requirements and countries where audit firms face a higher litigation and sanction risk. Findings also show that firms are less likely to bribe bureaucrats in case financial statements are reviewed by an external audit firm. Our results are economically significant and are robust to several sensitivity analyses. These findings support certain policies that are currently being implemented or discussed to mitigate bribery within the public sector across the globe.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2321-6