On 2 September at 14:15 Gaygysyz Ashyrov will defend his doctoral thesis economics “Essays on firm-level corruption” for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in Economics).
Supervisor:
Senior Research Fellow Jaan Masso, University of Tartu
Opponents:
Associate Professor Julia Korosteleva, University College London, (United Kingdom)
Professor Aaro Hazak, Tallinn University of Technology
Summary
Corruption is considered as one of the most important epidemic issues and crucial barrier against development of the economies. Economic cost of corruption is enormous. For example, bribery, as just one form of corruption, is estimated to cost annually over 1 Trillion USD which is slightly larger than Netherlands GDP in 2019. Corruption is not only economic phenomenon in the country, it can be considered as result—a reflection of a country’s legal, economic, cultural and political institutions. Therefore, corruption can be treated as an institutional dysfunctionality and multi-faceted features should be thoroughly studied for proposing a solution to alleviate adverse consequences.
Despite corruption is a complex phenomenon to fully investigate in one dissertation, this thesis serves to uncover interesting corruption related research problems by shedding light on different aspect of link between corruption and firms. Intriguing questions are investigated throughout the thesis, for example, “do corruption occur only between private and public sectors or it may also take place within private sector? What kind of mechanisms and considerations drive managers to get involve to the corrupt interactions? Does corruption disproportionately affect foreign and domestic owned firms? Does type of corruption matter for firm performance?” By addressing these questions, this thesis could provide a complete picture of the corruption in private sphere, which starts from decision making process prior to corruption and ends with consequences on firm performance. Therefore, the purpose of the thesis, as a collection of four empirical case-studies, is to provide an in-depth understanding of private side of corruption from firm managers' decision-making process to the consequences on firm performance. Study I and II explore the role of managerial considerations and traits in engaging with acts of corruption, while Study III and IV focus on the consequences of corruption on firm performance. It is important to note that studies primarily use dataset from post-communist countries, where corruption is widespread problem. Accordingly, findings may help to enhance our knowledge about this persisting problem and design strategies against corruption in these countries.