Decreasing Corruption and Increasing Competitiveness through E-Government

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) c orruption, the rule of law and competitiveness in different member-countrie s 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.