Logo
Munich Personal RePEc Archive

Do Freedom of Information Laws Decrease Corruption?

Tavares, Samia (2007): Do Freedom of Information Laws Decrease Corruption?

[thumbnail of MPRA_paper_3560.pdf]
Preview
PDF
MPRA_paper_3560.pdf

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

It has been argued that greater transparency is needed to reduce corruption. One way of increasing transparency is through the adoption of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. This paper uses the introduction of FOI laws as a natural experiment to determine their effect on corruption. Using a sample of democratic countries and two different corruption indices, I find that countries that adopted FOI laws saw an increase in corruption. Results are robust throughout different specifications. Moreover, I find that countries with plurality systems potentially experienced a decrease in corruption following the adoption of FOI legislation. Having a parliamentary system, however, had no impact on the effect of the reform.

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact us: mpra@ub.uni-muenchen.de

This repository has been built using EPrints software.

MPRA is a RePEc service hosted by Logo of the University Library LMU Munich.