ABSTRACT
Although several cross-country studies examine the role of the overall national legal eff ectiveness* and legal origin in aff ecting corruption (e.g., Treisman, 2000; Herzfeld and Weiss, 2003), these papers do not address the role of local governance structures within countries, partly due to data availability issues. We show that the severity of corruption varies substantially across 24 provinces in Vietnam, a country of French legal origin. Provinces are important administrative units under the central government in Vietnam. ey have considerable ability to shape the structure and quality of local public governance. Our detailed data on Vietnam’s provincial governance off er an opportunity to investigate whether and how local public governance infl uences the severity of corruption in the corporate sector.
