Public Corruption and Infrastructure Investment: Evidence from U.S. States

• 발행기관: 한국국정관리학회
• 저자명: 이제경(Jekyung Lee),류철(Cheol Liu),Can Chen
• 간행물 정보: 『한국국정관리학회 학술대회논문집』2021년도 한국국정관리학회 춘계학술대회 논문집, 1~22쪽, 전체 22쪽
• 주제분류: 사회과학 > 행정학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2021.05.30

영문 초록

Infrastructure is one of the more corruption-prone sectors. This sector allows public officials discretion, attracts rent-seeking activities, and conceals malfeasance through secretive transactions. Few studies have linked government corruption to public infrastructure investment at the subnational governments, particularly in developed countries. To fill this void, the study aims at exploring the effect of government corruption on U.S. state highway infrastructure investment during the period of 1995-2008. Drawing from the theory of rent-seeking, this research examines theoretically and empirically two regimes of hypotheses: size and allocation. First, we expect that states with a higher level of corruption will spend more on highways because corrupt officials are likely to spend public resources on items for which is easier to levy larger bribes such as highway constructions. Second, we expect that states with a higher level of corruption are also likely to distort highway expenditure composition across sub-categories by spending more (less) on more (less) lucrative sectors to corrupt officials. To test our research hypotheses, a dynamic panel regression model approach is utilized. The dependent variables are the total size (per capita and per lane mile of state highway infrastructure spending) and the allocation of state highway infrastructure spending across the five different functions (capital outlay, physical maintenance, traffic services, administration and research, and highway law enforcement and safety). The data is obtained from U.S. Federal Highway Administration’s Highway Statistics. The key independent variable is an objective corruption measure as the number of public employees who were convicted by violations of the federal corruption-related laws. The data comes from U.S. Department of Justice’s Annual Report to Congress on the Activities and Operations of the Public Integrity Section. A set of control variables accounting for state economic, political, and social-demographic conditions are employed. The data comes from various sources including the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and US Census Bureau. The study makes key contributions to the literature in three important ways. First, it provides rigorous empirical evidence about the effect of public officials’ corruption on public infrastructure investment. Second, it sheds new light on the determinants of public infrastructure investment. Third, it offers policy implications of fighting corruption in the infrastructure sector and improving infrastructure governance and accountability.

목차

Introduction

Literature Review

Theoretical Framework

Data

Methods

Results

Conclusion

키워드

Public corruption Infrastructure spending Highway expenditure