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Corruption And Confidence In Public Institutions: Evidence From A Global Survey, Bianca Clausen, Aart Kraay, Zsolt Nyiri

Department of Political Science and Law Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Well-functioning institutions matter for economic development. In order to operate effectively, public institutions must also inspire confidence in those they serve. We use data from the Gallup World Poll, a unique and very large global household survey, to document a quantitatively large and statistically significant negative correlation between corruption and confidence in public institutions. This suggests an important indirect channel through which corruption can inhibit development: by eroding confidence in public institutions. This correlation is robust to the inclusion of a large set of controls for country and respondent-level characteristics. Moreover we show how it can plausibly be interpreted as …