The Heterogeneous Effects of Government Size and Press Freedom on Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa: Method of Moment Quantile Regression Approach

Although an active body of literature exists on the relationship between government size and corruption, different findings proliferate the literature due to the nuances of geographical context, methods, and variables employed. The paper employs the novel method of moment quantile regression with fixed effects over the period 1984-2018 to investigate the dynamic impact of government size and press freedom on corruption in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The main contribution is to examine the impact of government size and press freedom across the conditional distribution of corruption in SSA. The findings show that the impacts of government size and press freedom are heterogeneous across the conditional quantile distribution of corruption. Among the most corrupt countries in SSA, larger government size and press freedom significantly increase corruption. Some policy recommendations are offered based on these findings.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the dynamic impact of government size and press freedom on corruption in Sub-Saharan African countries using novel methodological approaches. The findings reveal that the effects of government size and press freedom on corruption vary across different conditional quantile distributions, with larger government size and press freedom significantly increasing corruption in the most corrupt countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Policy recommendations are made based on these findings.