Are Larger Countries Really More Corrupt?

Knack, Stephen ; Azfar, Omar

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTABILITY;    AGGREGATING GOVERNANCE INDICATORS;    ANTI-CORRUPTION;    AVERAGE RATINGS;    BRIBES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2470
RP-ID  :  WPS2470

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Several authors claim to provideevidence that government corruption is less severe in smallthan in large countries. The authors demonstrate that thisrelationship is an artifact of sample selection. Mostcorruption indicators provide ratings only for the countriesin which multi-national investors have the greatestinterest. These tend to include almost all large nationsbut, among small nations, only those that are well governed.The authors find that the relationship between corruptionand country size disappears when one uses either a newcorruption indicator with substantially increased countrycoverage or an alternative corruption indicator that coversall World Bank borrowers without regard to country size.They also show that the relationship between corruption andtrade intensity--a variable strongly related topopulation--disappears when samples less subject toselection bias are used.