Can bribery buy health? Evidence from post-communist countries

Arbeitspapier

Corruption is pervasive, but we know little about its effects on individual lives. This paper examines whether living in a corrupt society has deleterious effects on health. Using individual-level data from 28 post-communist countries, we demonstrate that bribing for public services worsens self-assessed health. Unlike other studies, we account for endogeneity of bribery and show that bribing for any type of public service, not just for health services, has an adverse impact. We also find that bribery lowers the quality of services received. Moreover, there are potentially high indirect costs of bribery since, as we show, it comes at the expense of cutting food consumption. These findings suggest that corruption is a potentially important source behind the poor health outcomes in many developing countries.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: GLO Discussion Paper ; No. 432

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Health and Economic Development ; Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law ; Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption ; Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government
• Subject: Bribery ; Corruption ; Health ; Post-Communist Countries

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Mavisakalyan, Astghik ; Otrachshenko, Vladimir ; Popova, Olga
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Global Labor Organization (GLO)
• (where): Essen
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/209573
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET