The Business of Corruption: Why Business Elites Collude or Combat Political Corruption
Name of applicant
Mogens Kamp Justesen
Title
Professor
Institution
Copenhagen Business School
Amount
DKK 12,898,799
Year
2025
Type of grant
Semper Ardens: Accomplish
What?
We study how and why business elites sometimes collude with public officials on corrupt transactions and why they sometimes combat corruption and push for reform that advances common market regulation. We focus on corporate-political networks and firm exposure to government regulation as pathways into corruption and how these processes vary across countries with different institutions.
Why?
Corruption has major economic and societal costs but benefits parts of the corporate and political elite. Grand corruption especially distorts markets and public policy in favour of privileged elites. Yet, we lack both theory and evidence to understand how top decision makers in firms choose between cultivating illicit ties to politics or advocating reforms to create rule-based market competition.
How?
Across eight democracies, we map corporate-political networks, conduct elite interviews, run survey experiments, and measure the behaviour of top-level firm decision-makers in virtual reality scenarios that simulate closed-door negotiations in real life. The results form the basis of a new political theory of business elites and provide anti-corruption policy tools for firms and regulators.