Corruption: A Description of the Concept and the Methodological Limitations to Measure It

Abstract

Corruption has been the object of multiple studies involving aspects such as causes, consequences, proper policies to fight this problem, and discussions about methodologies used to measure it. This review article starts with a brief bibliographical review of some of these aspects, followed by the presentation of the results from a series of research studies that, using statistical models, have evidenced the existing relationship between the economic growth rates in the different countries or investment with corruption, poverty, income inequality and criminality indicators. It is thus concluded that corruption deteriorates the companies’ business environment, as well as the economic growth of less developed countries. However, these results do not always have strong statistical evidence, which is why it is risky to generalize the possible effects of a high corruption level on the gross domestic product of the countries or on the poverty indicators