Corruption in European Countries: A Cross-national Comparison

This paper analyses the Control of corruption as measured by the World Bank and the possible causes for the level of corruption on a European level. Theories explaining the causes of corruption on a global level, namely GDP per capita, income inequality, generalized trust and the share of Protestants in the population are discussed and their validity is tested on a European level by pooling the data and conducting OLS regression analysis on the full sample of the European Social Survey data in the period 2002–2012. The analysis shows mixed results, especially concerning income inequality. Countries are then divided into countries with and without a history of communist rule and the differences between them are tested. This micromacro model shows that there are huge differences between countries with a communist legacy and countries with a longer history of democracy and rule of law. The effects of each independent variable are discussed.