Droughts and corruption

Natural disasters are challenges for good governance. That conclusion follows from recent research investigating the effects of natural disasters on one important force hostile to good governance: public sector corruption. However, a specific analysis of droughts is so far neglected in the still-young relevant strand of the literature. The present paper fills that gap by analyzing the short- and long-term influence of droughts on public sector corruption within a unified panel estimation approach for 120 countries during the period 1985–2013. Relying on a meteorological drought measure, the Standardized Precipitation Index, we show that more severe drought exposure is followed by more corruption. The effect holds for subsamples of developing and developed countries. The robustness of the results is supported by a variety of stability tests. Furthermore, we provide initial evidence on the transmission paths of drought-induced corruption, which differ depending on the countries’ level of development. Whereas droughts increase corruption risk in developing countries by triggering significantly larger aid inflows and less democratic accountability and transparency, corruption in developed countries rises as a consequence of governmental drought relief payments.