TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hines,James R., Jr.
TI  - Forbidden Payment: Foreign Bribery and American Business After 1977
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5266
PY  - 1995
Y2  - September 1995
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5266
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5266.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
James R. Hines
Department of Economics
University of Michigan
343 Lorch Hall
611 Tappan Street
Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1220
Tel: 734/764-2320
Fax: 734/764-2769
E-Mail: jrhines@umich.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1996-03-01
AB  - The United States prohibits American individuals and corporations from bribing foreign government officials.  Legislation enacted in 1976 and 1977 stipulates tax penalties, fines, and even prison terms for executives of American companies that pay illegal bribes.  This paper examines the effect of US anti-bribery legislation on the operations of US firms in bribe-prone countries after 1977.  Four separate indicators reveal that US business activities in these countries fell sharply after passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.  These results suggest that this unilateral action by the United States served to weaken the competitive positions of American firms without significantly reducing the importance of bribery to foreign business transactions.
ER  -