PRIMARY DETERMINANTS AND THE SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF CORRUPTION

This paper analyzes the spatial distribution of corruption and its primary economic and political determinants. Economic freedom and development are found to lower incidences of corruption. Of notable significance, this study finds empirical evidence of a non-linear relationship between a country’s level of democracy and corruption. Extreme authoritarian regimes are found to have lower corruption levels than hybrid regimes, but past a certain threshold democracy inhibits corruption. More importantly the analysis in this paper finds that the economic and political actions of a country have a significant impact on corruption levels worldwide.