The results of a cross-country empirical analysis suggests that political institutions are extremely important in determining the prevalence of corruption: democracy, parliamentary systems, political stability, and freedom of the press are all associated with lower corruption

In this article we take an empirical cross-country perspective to investigate the robustness and causality of the link between income inequality and crime rates. First, we study the correlation between the Gini index and, respectively, homicide and robbery rates along different dimensions of the...

Using a cross-country panel, Lederman, Loayza, and Soares examine the determinants of corruption, paying particular attention to political institutions that increase political accountability. Previous empirical studies have not analyzed the role of political institutions, even though both the...