We empirically examine the effect of two measures of culture, the World Values Survey and Hofstede's six dimensions, on three measures of corruption, Transparency International's CPI, the International Country Risk Guide, and the World Bank's Corruption Index. By adopting three measures of corruption and using a large data set covering many countries over many years, we offer more robust results as to the effects of aspects of culture on corruption. Using the World Values Survey, we find that Trust in society, Control over one's destiny and Respect for others decrease corruption while Obedience increases corruption. We find strong evidence that societies characterized by high Power Distance and Masculinity are more corrupt. Some evidence is found to indicate Long Term Orientation, Indulgence, and Individualism have a negative effect on corruption. The effect of Uncertainty Avoidance on corruption is unclear. The results have
We argue that using the aggregate of the Euclidian distance of different dimensions of culture to measure the impact of culture on bilateral trade patterns as is conventional in the literature is flawed. Using recent innovations in gravity model estimations and adopting the GLOBE team dimensions of culture, we confirm that the aggregate measure of culture imposes arbitrary functional forms, wrongly assumes symmetry in the effect of culture on bilateral trade, generalizes the effect of culture on trade and lacks policy relevancy. Our novel approach also allows us to determine which aspects of culture promote trade and which aspects do not.
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