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This study aims to assess the risks of systematisation of corruption in the UK following the Brexit referendum.

The study applies theoretical and empirical findings of criminological, social, psychological, economic and legal research on the causes of systemic corruption to the socio-institutional developments following the Leave vote.

The events surrounding the referendum confirm that the resort to corrupt practices is normalised in certain sectors of the British institutions, business and media and that socio-political processes activated by the Leave vote and inadequate UK policymaking and lawmaking can aggravate the situational and socio-psychological enablers of systemic corruption. Effective solutions must go beyond mere anti-corruption laws and address deeper social issues.

The study focuses only on some of the major situational and socio-psychological causes of systemic corruption, including the unintended criminogenic effects of the law. More interdisciplinary research is required to address other causes, such as historical and cultural factors.

The findings of this study can inspire practical solutions by policymakers and future research.

The study contributes to raising social awareness and stimulating public discussion on systemic corruption in the UK and on the consequences of the referendum on public and private integrity.

The study offers the first systematic analysis of the effects of Brexit and the referendum on corruption through an integrated interdisciplinary approach to systemic corruption in the UK.

This study aims to examine the relationship between e-government and corruption in selected South Asian countries (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka).

The sample data were gathered from reliable secondary sources over a sample period of 2003–2018. Additionally, this study incorporated other potential determinants or corruption, such as government effectiveness, press freedom, education and economy. To assess sample data, this study used panel data econometric procedures.

Results indicated that e-government had a positive and significant impact on corruption. Similarly, government effectiveness and education had a positive and significant influence on corruption. However, press freedom and the economy showed a negative and insignificant impact on corruption. This study further found the robustness of the results through sensitivity analysis. Overall, it was concluded that e-government plays a significant role to reduce corruption.

The governments should implement the e-governance system and provide a transparent and accountable environment to eliminate corruption.

When there is freedom of press, newspapers provide prying eyes that investigate and report the malfeasance by public officials. More prying eyes together with more newspaper readership make monitoring of public officials by the public easier and cheaper. This paper aims to investigate the role of newspapers in helping the public observe the conduct of local officials fearful of discovery of malfeasance by the newspaper readers in the USA during 1978 – 2008 when the internet was still a fledgling source of news.

A model that recognize that corruption is an agency problem that thrives in the absence of monitoring of public officials is used. The estimation technique used address problems issuing from the subjective nature of measures of press freedom and perception of corruption, and the persistence of corruption over time.

More newspapers and newspaper readers help to alleviate the agency problem that underlies public corruption in the USA and elsewhere. More newspapers (i.e. more journalists) act to deter corruption at the margin, and, ceteris paribus, higher readership works on exposing corrupt acts and helps to convict the errant officials in larger numbers.

The paper provides a timely context to consider the implication of sharp fall in local newspapers as well as newspaper readership all across the USA.

This paper extends the literature by considering press freedom, the number of newspapers and size of newspaper readership as joint determinants of public corruption.

Using a meta-regression analysis, we quantitatively review the empirical literature on the relation between effective tax rate (ETR) and firm size. Accounting literature offers two competing theories on this relation: The political cost theory, suggesting a positive size-ETR relation, and the political power theory, suggesting a negative size-ETR relation. Using a unique data set of 56 studies that do not show a clear tendency towards either of the two theories, we contribute to the discussion on the size-ETR relation in three ways: First, applying meta-regression analysis on a US meta-data set, we provide evidence supporting the political cost theory. Second, our analysis reveals factors that are possible sources of variation and bias in previous empirical studies; these findings can improve future empirical and analytical models. Third, we extend our analysis to a cross-country meta-data set; this extension enables us to investigate explanations for the two competing theories in more detail. We find that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, a transparency index and a corruption index explain variation in the size-ETR relation. Independent of the two theories, we also find that tax planning aspects potentially affect the size-ETR relation. To our knowledge, these explanations have not yet been investigated in our research context.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the recurrent amnesties to black money holders (BMHs) in Bangladesh have not benefited the national economy, rather have increased corruption and money laundering, and that offering further opportunity to whiten back money as recommended by the Anti-Corruption Commission of Bangladesh will do more harm than good.

This research relies on both primary and secondary materials adopting an archival analysis of the existing literature.

The major findings include the following: the recurrent amnesties to BMHs have damaging impacts on corruption and money laundering in Bangladesh; the Anti-Corruption Commission of Bangladesh’s recommendation to provide further opportunity to legalise black money is flawed, ill thought-out and misjudgement of the futility of the amnesties offered to date; and the black money problem could be better addressed through using educational, preventive and punitive measures that have been specifically formulated in this paper.

This research does not examine the flaws that may remain in the provisions of existing laws; rather it gives emphasis to the enforcement of the law in place. Legal flaws thus can be a subject matter of another endeavour.

As implications, it is expected that this research will encourage the concerned authorities in Bangladesh to stop offering amnesties to BMHs for good. Also, other countries facing a similar problem can learn from the experience of Bangladesh presented, and specific recommendations submitted, in this paper, in dealing with black money, corruption and money laundering.

It is expected that if the recommendations furnished in this paper are implemented, corruption in, and money laundering from, Bangladesh will reduce. This reduction will facilitate ensuring fairness in the society in many respects, deter criminal activities associated with black money and enable honest taxpayers to buy their homes in a level-playing filed.

This paper presents original research in terms of analysis of materials and the recommendations submitted to deal with corruption, black money and money laundering.

This chapter assesses the impact of ethics laws at the state level in the U.S., focusing on laws that apply specifically to one category of public officials: legislators. I first discuss the positive contribution of ethics laws to the functioning of democratic government. I then turn to the costs of the laws, which are often subtle and counterintuitive. The discussion of the costs of ethics laws draws on a growing body of empirical evidence, and highlights the ways that legislation can have unintended and undesirable consequences.

This study aims to contribute to the existing literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) by examining the influence of national media environments on the economic consequences of CSR. Drawing on signaling theory, this study distinguishes between two country-level media environments − digital media accessibility and media freedom − of which the prior research has often implied their value in cultivating the stakeholders’ awareness about the firms’ socially responsible behavior, suggesting that they amplify the benefits of CSR actions.

This study conducts multilevel analysis with a sample of 44,222 firm-year observations representing 6,726 companies from 57 countries over the period 2003–2019.

This study finds supportive evidence that CSR is more positively related to financial gains in countries with greater digital media accessibility. This study concludes that digital media accessibility affects a firm’s reputation and legitimacy benefits derived from CSR actions, resulting in better financial performance (FP).

The findings of this paper contribute to the existing literature on the CSR–FP relationship by demonstrating the relevance of considering the media environment to better explain the link between CSR and FP. In doing so, this study enriches our understanding of the importance of the media at macro-level institutions by examining how and why these media environments cultivate a culture of CSR as a strategic tool for firms.