Ownership structure, corruption, and capital investment: Evidence from firms in selected Sub-Saharan African countries

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the relationship between ownership structure, corruption, and capital investments in firms operating in a selected sample of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. Using a sample of an unbalanced panel of firms over different time periods that ranged from 2003 to 2016, and estimating with the fixed effects technique, we find that foreign ownership and bribery payments have positive and negative effects, respectively, on the capital investment of firms. Furthermore, the marginal effects analysis reveals that the effects of ownership structure and bribery payments differ significantly across our selected sample of countries and across different firm sizes. Policy implications were deduced from the findings.