Using firm-level data from more than 39,000 firms in 111 economies, this paper tests the hypothesis that corruption impedes productivity more at higher levels of regulation. The analysis finds that there is a significant negative relationship between corruption and firm productivity when...

Purpose – Accounting and regulators are an integral part of new public management (NPM) across public sectors. This article aims to look at one of their potential drawbacks by investigating how a policy was deemed as a failure by regulators because of its limited financial controls....