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Corruption in America

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  • Edward L. Glaeser
  • Raven Saks

Abstract

We use a data set of federal corruption convictions in the U.S. to investigate the causes and consequences of corruption. More educated states, and to a less degree richer states, have less corruption. This relationship holds even when we use historical factors like education in 1928 or Congregationalism in 1890, as instruments for the level of schooling today. The level of corruption is weakly correlated with the level of income inequality and racial fractionalization, and uncorrelated with the size of government. There is a weak negative relationship between corruption and employment and income growth. These results echo the cross-country findings, and support the view that the correlation between development and good political outcomes occurs because more education improves political institutions.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10821.

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Date of creation: Oct 2004
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10821

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  1. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-79, April.
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  8. Fisman, Raymond & Gatti, Roberta, 2002. " Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. Federal Transfer Programs," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(1-2), pages 25-35, October.
  9. Goldin, Claudia, 1998. "America's Graduation from High School: The Evolution and Spread of Secondary Schooling in the Twentieth Century," Scholarly Articles 2664307, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  10. Edward L. Glaeser & Albert Saiz, 2003. "The Rise of the Skilled City," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2025, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  11. Rose-Ackerman, Susan, 1975. "The economics of corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 187-203, February.
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  13. Isaac Ehrlich & Francis T. Lui, 1999. "Bureaucratic Corruption and Endogenous Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages S270-S293, December.
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Cited by:
  1. Dincer, Oguzhan C., 2008. "Ethnic and religious diversity and corruption," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 98-102, April.
  2. Christopher J. Ellis & Oguzhan C. Dincer & Glenn R. Waddell, 2005. "Corruption, Decentralization and Yardstick Competition," University of Oregon Economics Department Working Papers 2005-5, University of Oregon Economics Department, revised 01 Jan 2006.
  3. Benjamin A. Olken, 2006. "Corruption Perceptions vs. Corruption Reality," NBER Working Papers 12428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Olken, Benjamin A., 2006. "Corruption and the costs of redistribution: Micro evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 853-870, May.
  5. Russell S. Sobel & Nabamita Dutta & Sanjukta Roy, 2010. "Does Cultural Diversity Increase The Rate Of Entrepreneurship?," Working Papers 10-12, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
  6. Oguzhan C. Dincer & Peter J. Lambert, 2006. "Taking care of your own: Ethnic and religious heterogeneity and income inequality," University of Oregon Economics Department Working Papers 2006-9, University of Oregon Economics Department.
  7. Marcel Thum, 2005. "Korruption und Schattenwirtschaft," Ifo Working Paper Series Ifo Working Papers No.12, Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.

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