Does the Internet Reduce Corruption? Evidence from U.S. States and across Countries

We test the hypothesis that the Internet is a useful technology for controlling corruption. In order to do so, we develop a novel identification strategy for Internet diffusion. Power disruptions damage digital equipment, which increases the user cost of IT capital, and thus lowers the speed of Inte...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Barnebeck Andersen, Thomas, Bentzen, Jeanet, Dalgaard, Carl-Johan, Selaya, Pablo
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	en_US
Published:	World Bank 2013
Subjects:	basic codes Computer equipment Computer memory Computers devices digital e-mail equipment information storage innovations memory cards networks new technologies new technology online systems sensors servers technological change transistors
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13481

id	okr-10986-13481
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-134812021-04-23T14:03:08Z Does the Internet Reduce Corruption? Evidence from U.S. States and across Countries Barnebeck Andersen, Thomas Bentzen, Jeanet Dalgaard, Carl-Johan Selaya, Pablo basic codes Computer equipment Computer memory Computers devices digital e-mail equipment information storage innovations memory cards networks new technologies new technology online systems sensors servers technological change transistors We test the hypothesis that the Internet is a useful technology for controlling corruption. In order to do so, we develop a novel identification strategy for Internet diffusion. Power disruptions damage digital equipment, which increases the user cost of IT capital, and thus lowers the speed of Internet diffusion. A natural phenomenon causing power disruptions is lightning activity, which makes lightning a viable instrument for Internet diffusion. Using ground-based lightning detection censors as well as global satellite data, we construct lightning density data for the contiguous U.S. states and a large cross section of countries. Empirically, lightning density is a strong instrument for Internet diffusion and our IV estimates suggest that the emergence of the Internet has served to reduce the extent of corruption across U.S. states and across the world. 2013-05-21T13:50:43Z 2013-05-21T13:50:43Z 2011-10-18 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X doi:10.1093/wber/lhr025 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13481 en_US World Bank Economic Review;25(3) CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank Journal Article Africa South Asia Latin America UNITED STATES
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
topic	basic codes Computer equipment Computer memory Computers devices digital e-mail equipment information storage innovations memory cards networks new technologies new technology online systems sensors servers technological change transistors
spellingShingle	basic codes Computer equipment Computer memory Computers devices digital e-mail equipment information storage innovations memory cards networks new technologies new technology online systems sensors servers technological change transistors Barnebeck Andersen, Thomas Bentzen, Jeanet Dalgaard, Carl-Johan Selaya, Pablo Does the Internet Reduce Corruption? Evidence from U.S. States and across Countries
geographic_facet	Africa South Asia Latin America UNITED STATES
relation	World Bank Economic Review;25(3)
description	We test the hypothesis that the Internet is a useful technology for controlling corruption. In order to do so, we develop a novel identification strategy for Internet diffusion. Power disruptions damage digital equipment, which increases the user cost of IT capital, and thus lowers the speed of Internet diffusion. A natural phenomenon causing power disruptions is lightning activity, which makes lightning a viable instrument for Internet diffusion. Using ground-based lightning detection censors as well as global satellite data, we construct lightning density data for the contiguous U.S. states and a large cross section of countries. Empirically, lightning density is a strong instrument for Internet diffusion and our IV estimates suggest that the emergence of the Internet has served to reduce the extent of corruption across U.S. states and across the world.
format	Journal Article
author	Barnebeck Andersen, Thomas Bentzen, Jeanet Dalgaard, Carl-Johan Selaya, Pablo
author_facet	Barnebeck Andersen, Thomas Bentzen, Jeanet Dalgaard, Carl-Johan Selaya, Pablo
author_sort	Barnebeck Andersen, Thomas
title	Does the Internet Reduce Corruption? Evidence from U.S. States and across Countries
title_short	Does the Internet Reduce Corruption? Evidence from U.S. States and across Countries
title_full	Does the Internet Reduce Corruption? Evidence from U.S. States and across Countries
title_fullStr	Does the Internet Reduce Corruption? Evidence from U.S. States and across Countries
title_full_unstemmed	Does the Internet Reduce Corruption? Evidence from U.S. States and across Countries
title_sort	does the internet reduce corruption? evidence from u.s. states and across countries
publisher	World Bank
publishDate	2013
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13481
_version_	1764423594868211712

Does the Internet Reduce Corruption? Evidence from U.S. States and across Countries

Similar Items