TITLE:
Decreasing Corruption and Increasing Competitiveness through E-Government
AUTHORS:
Thomas Poufinas, Anna Laskareli, Charalampos Agiropoulos
KEYWORDS:
E-Government, Good Governance, Digitalisation, Transparency, Corruption
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.13 No.2,
April
24,
2023
ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the contribution of e-government
and the implementation of digital practices in the daily administrative procedures
of the state/ government to the prevention of corruption and the consolidation of
transparency in the transactions between citizens and authorities. It focuses in
particular on the period 2007-2021, covering the years 2020 and 2021, when the implementation
of digital practices skyrocketed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The analysis
employs a series of variables that represent the development of e-government and
the digitization of public procedures and uses a series of econometric models to
detect their impact on (the perceived) corruption,
the rule of law and competitiveness in different member-countries of the
European Union. These variables express the perceptions of citizens of different
European Union countries with respect to digitized public services. The data come
from the public databases of the World Bank, the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, the United Nations and Eurostat and cover the period
2007-2021. The study provides evidence that e-government and the use of public internet
to interact with the public authorities exert significant positive impact on competitiveness
at all model specifications; the use of public internet to interact with the public
authorities posts significant positive influence on (the fight against) corruption
at all models; and the information and communication technology access for business
has significant positive effect on the rule of law in the model specifications that
use foreign direct investment inflows or outflows as control variables. In contrast
the positive impact of e-government on (the fight against) corruption is not statistically
significant, whereas its impact on the rule of law was found to be statistically
significant and negative. These findings can be of value to the policy makers across
the European Union countries as they can at least secure the digitization of the
transactions of the citizens with the state, as well as the digital transition of
the enterprises as a means to decrease corruption,
increase competitiveness and improve the rule of law.