The corruption footprints of nations

Corruption is a global and multidimensional problem caused by a combination of economic, political and social factors. The existing research shows that corruption levels in different countries are correlated, indicating that... [ view full abstract ]

Corruption is a global and multidimensional problem caused by a combination of economic, political and social factors. The existing research shows that corruption levels in different countries are correlated, indicating that corruption occurring in one country may have repercussions for corruption in other countries. Since corruption generally hampers international trade, we apply multi-regional input-output (MRIO) method to link corruption impacts to economic and social aspects of trade, in order to analyse the global links between the social problem corruption in one place and individual consumers’ behaviour elsewhere, thus making it possible to find avenues for tackling the problem that are not usually considered in anti-corruption strategies.

We calculate corruption footprints of 189 nations and show commodity details of corrupt sectors. Every country’s corruption footprint includes its domestic corruption and the corruption imported via global supply chains to meet final demand. Our results show that generally the net corruption exporters are developing countries, but Italy is an exception. China is the largest gross corruption exporter, and clothing is the most corruption-intensive commodity. Our results can be useful to community groups, NGOs and policy-makers for developing consumer guidelines, regulations and laws to combat corruption.