Corruption and economic growth: A meta-analysis of the evidence on low-income countries and beyond

Mehmet Ugur () and Nandini Dasgupta

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Corruption is a symptom and outcome of institutional deficiency, with potentially adverse effects on economic growth. This paper aims to provide a synthesis of the existing evidence on the relationship between corruption and economic growth - controlling for effect type, data sources, and country groupings. Using 32 key search terms and 43 low-income country names, we searched in 20 electronic databases and obtained 1,002 studies. Initial screening on the basis of PIOS (Population-Independent Variable-Outcome-Study Design) criteria and critical evaluation on the basis VRA (Validity-Reliability-Applicability) criteria led to inclusion of 115 studies for analysis. We conduct a meta-analysis of the empirical findings in 72 empirical studies, using fixed-effect and random-effect weighted means and testing for significance through precision-effect tests (PETs). Our findings indicate that corruption has a negative effect on per-capita GDP growth overall. We also report that corruption is relatively more detrimental in mixed countries as opposed to low-income countries only and that indirect effects of corruption on growth (through the human capital and public finance channels) are larger than its direct effects.

Keywords: Corruption; institutions; governance; economic growth; meta-analysis; systematic reviews (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E02 O11 O43 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-04-20, Revised 2011-05-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-fdg and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/31226/1/MPRA_paper_31226.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:31226

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().