The Impact of Corruption On Economic Growth: A Nonlinear Evidence
Abstract Several cross-country studies have found that corruption slows growth, but these findings are not universally robust. Therefore, the questions to be addressed are to what extent corruption can be tolerated and at what threshold it has a detrimental effect on an economy.This article investigates the impact of corruption on economic growth by testing the hypothesis that the relationship between these two variables is nonlinear. In this article, a panel data analysis has been used to examine 65 countries over the 1987 to 2018 period. Our findings are that corruption can have a positive effect on growth. The results indicate that beyond an optimal threshold, both high and low corruption levels can decrease economic growth. Under this optimal threshold, a moderate level of corruption, defined by the point of reversal of the curve of the marginal corruption effect on growth, could have advantages for economic growth.JEL: B23, C51, D73, O47.