THE GLOBAL CRISIS AND CORRUPTION: RETAILERS, GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS AND LICENSING

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on retailers in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and examine the possible change in the level of corruption after the 2008-2009 Global Crisis. We focus on three events: securing government contracts, applications for an operating license, and applications for an importing license by retailers in the region. We find that fewer retailers secured or attempted to secure a government contract after the crisis ended. This may be due to overall economic activities going down during this period. We also find bribes got smaller after the crisis ended, which was a positive change. Our results show that there was no significant change in the percentage of retailers applying for an import license or the percentage that paid bribes after the crisis ended. The number of days needed to get this license went down, which was a positive change. Our results show that applications by retailers to get an operating license went down, which might also be due to overall activities going down. The percentage that paid bribes to get an operating license got smaller, which was a positive change. On the other hand, the number of days needed to get an operating license went up, which was a negative change. Overall, we can conclude that there were some positive changes in terms of corruption facing retailers in the region.

Keywords

• corruption
• bribe
• bribery
• crisis
• retailers
• contract
• license