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Social Indicators Research
Published in: Social Indicators Research 2/2016

04-08-2015

On the Confluence of Freedom of the Press, Control of Corruption and Societal Welfare

Authors: Christopher L. Ambrey, Christopher M. Fleming, Matthew Manning, Christine Smith

Published in: Social Indicators Research | Issue 2/2016

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Abstract

This paper employs data from 135 countries to investigate the role a free press plays in controlling corruption and the extent to which this may lead to greater national income and enhanced societal welfare (as measured by self-reported life satisfaction). Results suggest that freedom of the press, through enabling the control of corruption, is associated with increased real GDP per capita and (independently) higher life satisfaction. This provides further motivation for policy makers to give greater recognition to the aspects of societal welfare not readily encapsulated within conventional measures of national income.
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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
The extent to which the press is free is not confined to direct government ownership and control; rather, it encompasses a measure of government regulation, direct subsidies and advertising revenues, as well as legal limits on access to newsprint, information and reporting (Djankov et al. 2002, 2003).
 
2
Rather than employing the current period measure of control of corruption throughout, the one year lag is used. The control of corruption is measured at the end of the sample period and the lagged variable makes a causal interpretation plausible (Svensson 2005).
 
3
For Eqs. 9, 10 and 11 the matrix of coefficients of the endogenous variables is triangular, implying that its determinant is 1. As such, the Jacobian term in the loglikelihood function for the system vanishes and the loglikelihood function has the same form as the loglikelihood function for a set of linear seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR). The greater the magnitude of the cross-equation correlations of the residuals and correlations among the covariates across different equations, the greater the efficiency gains from estimating the system using SUR.
 
4
Freedom of the press is not found to be directly statistically significantly associated with life satisfaction; a result consistent with findings elsewhere (Schyns 1998; Veenhoven 1999; Welsch 2003). Welsch (2003) notes that the observation that freedoms might affect happiness only indirectly, that is via their effect on income, is not simply an artefact of multicollinearity. Further research is required to shed more light on this finding. It may be the case that this finding reflects the conceptual incongruence between Sen’s capabilities perspective and the hedonistic-utilitarian perspective.
 
5
While the negative coefficient for the freedom of the press variable appears to be counter intuitive, the negative coefficient does in fact suggest a positive association between freedom of the press and the control of corruption. The negative coefficient is a result of the freedom of the press variable being ordered from 0 (most free) to 100 (least free).
 
6
All figures are in 2005 USD adjusted for purchasing power parity.
 
7
The outliers (those countries in the final 10 % of the total effect monetary equivalent distribution) include Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States of America. In unreported results, excluding these outliers changes the estimated coefficient for freedom of the press reported in Table 2 from −0.1561 to −0.1070, a reduction of approximately one-third. Nonetheless, the estimate remains within the 95 % confidence interval (−0.0745 to −0.2378) of the estimate reported in Table 2. The coefficient remains statistically significant (now at the 5 % level, with a p value of 0.0150).
 
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Metadata
Title
On the Confluence of Freedom of the Press, Control of Corruption and Societal Welfare
Authors
Christopher L. Ambrey
Christopher M. Fleming
Matthew Manning
Christine Smith
Publication date
04-08-2015
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Social Indicators Research / Issue 2/2016
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1060-0

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