Does corruption ever help entrepreneurship?

Abstract

The current literature contains mixed results regarding the impact of corruption on entrepreneurship and economic growth. In this paper, we examine a much larger set of countries and time periods to attempt to gain insights into this relationship. In particular, the central question is whether corruption can compensate for a bad business climate. Our results are clear; corruption hurts entrepreneurship. The impact is smaller, but remains negative, when business climates are bad. This is in contrast to previous literature that suggests corruption may increase entrepreneurship under a bad business climate. We find corruption never improves entrepreneurship; it simply hurts less when business climates are not conducive to growth in the first place.