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RESEARCH PRODUCT

A free press is bad news for corruption

Beatrice WederAymo Brunetti

subject

Economics and EconometricsFree pressCorruptionFreedom of the pressLawmedia_common.quotation_subjectControl (management)EconomicsSample (statistics)CausationFinanceLaw and economicsmedia_common

description

Abstract This paper tests the proposition that a free press may be a powerful control on corruption. We find evidence of a significant relationship between more press freedom and less corruption in a large cross-section of countries. This result is robust to specification and sample and the relationship is not sensitive to the choice of a particular measure of corruption or of press freedom. Furthermore we present evidence which suggests that the direction of causation runs from higher press freedom to lower corruption.

https://doi.org/10.1016/s0047-2727(01)00186-4