Corruption via media capture: the e¤ect of competition

In this paper, we compare the conditions under which a government engages in corruption via bribing the media across two alternative settings: a media monopoly versus a media duopoly. A key distinction we make between the two settings is that unlike monopoly, in a duopoly a …rm’s individual capacity to expose the government may be lower than the collective capacity of both the …rms because the evidence of corruption may get spread so that each …rm may have some but not all the evidence. Further, a …rm that accepts a bribe may attempt to discredit the allegation made by the independent …rm, thus further weakening the latter’s ability to expose the government individually. Indeed, we …nd that when …rms are su¢ ciently weak in their individual capacity to expose relative to their collective capacity, corruption may be more easily supported via media capture in a duopoly relative to monopoly.