The transition of corruption: From poverty to honesty

Measures of corruption and income are highly correlated across countries. We use prehistoric measures of biogeography as instruments for modern income levels. We find that our instrumented incomes explain the cross-country pattern of corruption just as well as do actual incomes. This result demonstrates that the long-run causality is entirely from income to corruption. Hence, there is a Corruption Transition: As countries get rich, corruption vanishes.

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Year of publication:	2008
Authors:	Gundlach, Erich ; Paldam, Martin
Publisher:	Kiel : Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Subject:	Korruption \| Lebensstandard \| Entwicklung \| Welt \| Corruption \| Biogeography \| Long-run development

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Series:	Kiel Working Paper ; 1411
Type of publication:	Book / Working Paper
Type of publication (narrower categories):	Working Paper
Language:	English
Other identifiers:	560698429 [GVK] hdl:10419/4248 [Handle] RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:1411 [RePEc]
Classification:	B25 - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian ; O1 - Economic Development
Source:	EconStor

Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010273171