TY - JOUR
T1 - Corruption and extreme wealth. Evidence at country level
AU - Flores Marquez, Héctor
AU - Valderrama Santibañez, Ana Lilia
AU - Angeles Castro, Gerardo
AU - Neme Castillo, Omar
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that extreme wealth at country level is a consequence of corruption for a set of 42 countries over the period 2005–2018. A dynamic estimation (sys-GMM) is conducted, and different indices of corruption are used in order to obtain solid results. The data on extreme wealth is taken from Forbes annual listing of billionaires. The main findings are highly supportive of the idea that corruption fosters extreme wealth, acting as a greasing wheel that contributes to this unbalanced economic process. Therefore, billionaires face incentives to perform these types of acts which tend to perpetuate the corrupt system. However, legal mechanisms are also significant determinants of extreme wealth. Results also confirm that factors such as economic freedom and its components, as well as other economic and political variables, have positive effects on this wealth.
AB - The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that extreme wealth at country level is a consequence of corruption for a set of 42 countries over the period 2005–2018. A dynamic estimation (sys-GMM) is conducted, and different indices of corruption are used in order to obtain solid results. The data on extreme wealth is taken from Forbes annual listing of billionaires. The main findings are highly supportive of the idea that corruption fosters extreme wealth, acting as a greasing wheel that contributes to this unbalanced economic process. Therefore, billionaires face incentives to perform these types of acts which tend to perpetuate the corrupt system. However, legal mechanisms are also significant determinants of extreme wealth. Results also confirm that factors such as economic freedom and its components, as well as other economic and political variables, have positive effects on this wealth.
KW - civil liberties
KW - corruption
KW - economic freedom
KW - extreme wealth
KW - panel data
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104839857&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/23311886.2021.1910163
DO - 10.1080/23311886.2021.1910163
M3 - Artículo
AN - SCOPUS:85104839857
SN - 2331-1886
VL - 7
JO - Cogent Social Sciences
JF - Cogent Social Sciences
IS - 1
M1 - 1910163
ER -