The Sustainability of Corruption

Abstract

"A growing body of scholars and policy makers have become increasingly concerned with the danger that corruption can pose to sustainability efforts as a lack of proper enforcement of the environmental legislation can produce the conditions under which environmental initiatives can easy flounder as the rules and regulations are ignored. This study devises an empirical test of this proposition, using data from the World Bank's World Development Indicators and the World Governance Indicators datasets. The analysis uses a time-series to evaluate the effect of various forms of corruption on sustainability of the nation state and includes an analysis of 121 countries from 1996 to 2010. It finds that states suffering from high levels of corruption in aggregate tend to have lower levels of sustainability. Of the sub-varia on corruption it finds that the rule of law and control of corruption have the strongest effect on sustainability. However, the effect on control of corruption is more troubling as the sign is negative contrary to expectations, presenting an avenue for future research into the effect of corruption on sustainability."