corruption

postcommunist countries

firm-level panel data

D22

D23

D73

The article looks at how Polish firms view corruption and whether they see it as a major obstacle to doing business. The authors investigate the relationship between the characteristic features of firms and their perception of corruption. The authors examine the findings of previous studies in the field. They conduct an empirical analysis using panel data on 25,000 firms in 27 postcommunist countries from 1999 to 2010. The research makes it possible to identify companies for which corruption is a major obstacle to doing business. The authors conclude that corruption is especially troublesome for companies producing goods for the domestic market and for private companies based on domestic capital. The study also finds that corruption poses a problem to companies regardless of their efficiency and size. The authors’ key recommendation for economic policy makers is that they should depersonalize businesses’ contacts with the government administration and reduce their frequency.