The Effect of Urban Population Density on Economic Corruption

Rafed Amin Al-Huq

Journal of Economic Issues, 2025, vol. 59, issue 2, 609-618

Abstract: Corruption, especially in developing countries, has been shown to have large persistent effects on inequality and economic growth. Efforts to eradicate or suppress corruption over the last two decades have floundered. This article argues that urban population density is a major underlying factor of economic corruption that previous studies have never considered. Increased population density communicates bribe success information rapidly and resistance to it becomes muted as more success is observed within a population. Urban density has not been considered before because while data for urban populations exist, data for urban extents did not. This article uses satellite night-time lights data to get an estimate of urban extent and uses it to calculate urban population density. This research shows that an increase in urban density by 100 people per square kilometer has the same effect on corruption as a decrease in the per capita GDP by $285 (in 2024 dollars).

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00213624.2025.2493584 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:mes:jeciss:v:59:y:2025:i:2:p:609-618

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MJEI20

DOI: 10.1080/00213624.2025.2493584

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Economic Issues from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().