Corruption across countries: Impacts from education and cultural dimensions

Abstract

Corruption, which is defined by Transparency International as the misuse of entrusted power for private gain, was related to the number of people participating in tertiary education across countries. It was found that as the number of people participating in tertiary education increased, the incidence of corruption occurring in the countries decreased. Similar to other studies, the higher the GDP per capita of a country, the lower the cases of corruption. Interestingly, correlation results showed that enrolment in tertiary education had a positive result with GDP per capita. Hofstede's (1984) cultural dimensions were also found to affect the acts of corruption indirectly through enrolment in tertiary education and GDP per capita. Overall, this study has included 56 countries and results were similar in two different time periods. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.