The Empirical Determinants of Corruption in Developing Countries

This paper investigates the main factors determining corruption in developing countries. It employs the fixed-effects estimation technique to data for several developing countries, pooled for the period 2004 to 2010. The empirical results revealed that the level of economic development, country size, natural resource exports, foreign direct investment, absence of democracy, and colonial legacy as the main correlates of corruption in the developing economies. Some policy implications are drawn.