Central bank independence, bureaucratic corruption and fiscal responses - empirical evidence
Year: 2010
Type: book
Abstract: This paper analyses the impact of bureaucratic corruption on fiscal policy outcomes for economies that have constituted to a greater or lessen extent independent central banks. The adverse implications of corruption on debt accumulation are verified using a cross-sectional setting of 77 developed and developing countries. Approximating central bank independence as that point in time that a major central bank reform took effect, we find that more corruption leads to higher debt accumulation. More importantly, complementing the analysis with a measure for the level of independence each reform gave strengthens the results; the impact of corruption is greater, the higher the independence that was granted. The findings are robust to different subsets of the sample and different sets of control variables. Suboptimal institutional quality poses difficulties on the achievement of a balanced debt process, which could obstacle price stability, despite the constitution of independent central banks.
Author: Ourania Dimakou
Institution: Birkbeck, University of London
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1493843884
