Causes of corruption; a comparative study.
This article’s main question is why in some countries corruption is more pervasive than in others. In order to do so, after a succinct review of the state of the art, the author carries out a multivariate ordinary least squares regression analysis for a 107 countries sample. The article concludes that corruption is a function of development, economic freedom, and democratic quality. A greater level of development and economic freedom inhibit corruption levels. In regards to democracy the relation is non-linear. Recently democratized countries show higher corruption scores than authoritarian countries. By the same token, the introduction of cultural-geographic control variable strengthens this findings, revealing that those regions where democratic and market transitions have taken place, show a worst score in the corruption index.
corruption causes