Bribes and Local Fiscal Autonomy in Russia

31 Pages Posted: 20 May 2016 Last revised: 18 Nov 2021

Date Written: May 31, 2007

Abstract

Russian industrial enterprises inherited from the Soviet era a tradition of producing welfare and infrastructure services within the firm, also for outside users. Despite the massive restructuring of the economy that took place since, many firms are still active in service provision. At the same time, opaque fiscal federalism is a problem for municipalities whereas rent extraction by public sector officials is a problem for firms. In this paper we examine whether there is a link between these phenomena. We propose a model on local fiscal incentives, service provision by firms and the municipality-firm relationship in the form of bribes. Using survey data from 404 medium and large industrial enterprises in 40 regions of Russia, we find that the higher the share of own revenues in the local budget, the more likely the firms are to report bribes. In the case of infrastructure services, the data also support the hypothesis that the channel is through service provision: the less fiscal autonomy, the more service provision and the less likely the firms are to report bribes.

Suggested Citation

Haaparanta, Pertti and Juurikkala, Tuuli, Bribes and Local Fiscal Autonomy in Russia (May 31, 2007). BOFIT Discussion Paper No. 12/2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2781911

Pertti Haaparanta (Contact Author)

Helsinki School of Economics ( email )

PO Box 1210
FI-00101 Helsinki
Finland

HOME PAGE: http://www.hse.fi/EN/HKI/H/Pertti.Haaparanta/1_ContactInfo

Tuuli Juurikkala

Bank of Finland ( email )

P.O. Box 160
FIN-00101 Helsinki
Finland

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