Publication

This publication examines how corruption affects the likelihood and direction of change in political institutions. It argues that the spending on private patronage has important ramifications for the stability of political systems. Using a multinominal logit model, the authors find that corruption substantially reduces the likelihood of transition toward democracy and that it makes autocratic and inconsistent polities more persistent to change. Applying further analytical tools, they also find that democracy reduces corruption in high-income countries, but not in low- and middle-income countries.