An analysis of the determinants of corruption: Evidence from the Italian regions

This paper investigates the causes of corruption in the Italian regions for the period 1980 to 2002 by selecting a number of hypotheses assessed in the literature. Corruption turns out to be driven by the level of per capita income and of education. While, as expected, income is negatively related with corruption, education is not; its positive impact on corruption can be explained as if corruption in Italy was typically a ‘white collars’ phenomenon during the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover the size of public investments in both the economic and politicoinstitutional dimensions seems to be a crucial factor in the explanation of the phenomenon.