Corruption and human development in Africa : an empirical analysis

Abstract EN

ased on a pooled-cross-country-across-time design, a sample of 40 countries over many years (2003-2007) and the OLS approach this study investigates the relationship between corruption and Human [HD] development in Africa holding constant major economic and political variables.

Using the main study’s model (Model 1), it was found that corruption adversely affects HD: a unit increase in an African country’s corruption perception level (CPI) will cause a .48 percent decrease in its state of HD (HDI).

Model 3, which added a square term of corruption to Model 1, revealed a non-linear relationship between corruption and HD: at and below 4.577 CPI (i.e., 5.42 normal CPI) corruption positively affects HD, but, at and above 4.577 CPI, corruption adversely affects HD with an increasing return.

Using Model 2, which incorporates an interaction term of corruption and political system in the original model, it appeared unexpectedly that, just like the non-or partly-democratic systems (i.e., authoritarian), democratic systems adversely affect HD.The adverse impact of corruption on HD is even higher in democratic systems by 2.73 percent.

Democracy has not improved but more severely damaged HD and tends to increase corruption: as an African country’s corruption perception increases by one unit, HD decreases by 9.48 percent in countries with an authoritarian system.

In contrast, one unit increase in corruption perception will have an additional 5.23 percent decrease in countries with a democratic system.

The researcher suggests contingent policy reform measures