Which Entrepreneurs Bribe and what do they Get from It? Exploratory Evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

This article investigates whether bribery in emerging economies matters and whether such bribery has a diminishing return to performance. Bribery allows entrepreneurs to develop and foster a network of informal relationships with public officials, and reap the accompanying benefits; but it may also have disadvantages, such as an inefficient allocation of resources. The relationship between bribery and performance was estimated using unique data derived from a survey of 606 Vietnamese entrepreneurs. We controlled for various entrepreneurial, organizational, and industrial characteristics. The exploratory results provide support for a hill–shaped non–monotonic relationship between bribery and revenues.