The relationship between economic and social development with competitiveness: An empirical study

The prevalence of institutional weaknesses largely unveils the existence of inherent economic and social underdevelopment as well as persistent bottlenecks of political nature, which in principle are more intense in lessdeveloped countries. In this study, by using a global sample of developed and developing countries it is proved that the relationship between corruption, which is a serious institutional deficiency, and income is not a symmetric one. However, the effective control of corruption should not be considered as a “quasi luxury good” the demand of which increases once the level of income rises to a certain level. On the contrary, it may beachieved through the adoption and effective implementation of the appropriate long-run policies and institutional reforms.