Corruption and Bilateral Trade Flows: Extortion or Evasion?
研究了腐败对双边贸易的双重影响：进口国海关官员敲诈出口商（抑制贸易）与允许出口商逃避高关税（促进贸易），发现多数情况下腐败抑制贸易，但在高关税环境下（5%-14%样本）反而促进贸易。
We analyze the impact of corruption on bilateral trade, highlighting its dual role in terms of extortion and evasion. Corruption taxes trade, when corrupt customs officials in the importing country extort bribes from exporters (extortion effect); however, with high tariffs, corruption may be trade enhancing when corrupt officials allow exporters to evade tariff barriers (evasion effect). We derive and estimate a corruption-augmented gravity model, where the effect of corruption on trade flows is ambiguous and contingent on tariffs. Empirically, corruption taxes trade in the majority of cases, but in high-tariff environments (covering 5%to 14% of the observations) their marginal effect is trade enhancing.