The Impact of Corruption on Economic Development

Dear Colleagues,

Corruption has a systemic, deleterious effect on societies, governments and countries around the world. Corruption’s presence indicates the ills of societies and economies; it impacts the development of the public sector, private sector and social sector in a country and destroys the public trust of citizens in their governments and ruling elites. Corruption’s ubiquity denotes that the existing institutional frameworks are unable to deal with its costs, and engagement with corrupt conduct reifies the inefficiencies within the system. The IMF estimates the average cost of corruption is 5% of global GDP annually or over USD 1 trilllion per year.¹

The UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) is the main international instrument addressing corruption on the multilateral level and has been ratified by over 190 countries.² The UNCAC seeks to address all forms of corruption from petty administrative bribery, to grey forms of lobbying, donations and post-public office employment, and finally to grand, systemic corruption with state capture which destroys countries, economies and societies, creating intergenerational trauma and diasporas.

In this Special Issue, we are seeking contributions that research the existing problems of corruption on economic development and suggestions to remedy the challenges so that healthy societies may develop in an increasingly polarised world. Climate change pressures also constrain the finite resources of our world, and the mitigation of corruption’s inefficiencies is necessary in order for humanity to survive.³ Each contributing paper is expected to refer to the UNCAC and nominate 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (see below).

Call for Papers

We welcome papers that can cover both developed (high GDP per capita) and developing countries (lower GDP per capita); ⁴ the former have just as many corruption issues covered in UNCACSu as the latter. The socioeconomic transition of middle and emerging countries and their corruption pressures would also be of interest, as would be successful anti-corruption programs and approaches to address systemic failures.

Corruption takes many different forms, but common indicators include the loss of public trust and conflicts of interest that create economic inefficiencies, higher income inequality and distorted productivity.

To that end, we seek contributions that address any of the following topics of corruption and economic development—notwithstanding nor limited to that area of interest—within the scope of this Special Issue:

• Accountability—public and private;
• Activism—civil society, institutional, investor, NGO, and shareholder;
• Aid programs and emergency response and recovery programs;
• Anti-corruption strategies such as costs, methods, options, skills, tools and toolkits, etc.;
• Banking and finance—extent of bank fraud; loan sharking; gambling, scamming; and organised crime;
• Behaviour and leadership;
• Bribery—administrative, petty and grand forms of bribery;
• Bureaucracy—administrative hurdles; appointment processes; behaviour; costs of; efficiencies and inefficiencies; independence; layers of; opportunistic conduct of; remuneration tenure;
• Cartels;
• Capture—economic, regulatory, and state;
• Civil society: impact of and impact to civil society;
• Climate change;
• Contracts—COVID-19, tenders, and bidding process (unfair and prejudicial);
• Corporate governance—role of corporations;
• Country case studies;
• Data on corruption such as their availability (intra- and intercountry), different rankings, and trends;
• Democracy—undermining and weakening.;
• Development assistance;
• Diasporas and exiles;
• Donations—political and campaign finance;
• Economic growth and its bilateral relationship with corruption;
• Elections and electoral systems—cycles, voting and interference;
• Elites—well connected and politically active and their relationships between public and private;
• Environmental damage, degradation and exploitation;
• Export controls and trade embargoes—effectiveness of; impact of and defence;
• Culture, ethics, norms and values;
• Deforestation and natural resource exploitation;
• Disaster—natural and human and responses to;
• Education—levels of; public funding of; and religions;
• Fourth estate—independence; journalism; and media;
• GICS sector-specific aged care, construction, defence, education, energy and extractive, finance, gambling, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, technology, timber and logging, transportation, etc.;
• Governance—public national and transnational;
• Governments—national, regional, provincial, state, and local;
• Human rights—exploitation, weakening, and gender equality;
• Incentives and disincentives;
• Indigenous peoples—abuse of human rights; dislocation; dispossession and landgrabs; impact on; lack of effective consultation processes, veto or other controls inter alia;
• Information—transparency and access to; bilateral relationship between corruption and freedom of the press, freedom of information; secrecy provisions; and whistleblower support;
• Integrity;
• Investment impact of corruption such as foreign direct investment (FDI), FDI regulations, investment climate variables, investment investments and disincentives;
• Labour—child; enslavement; and working condition;
• Infrastructure;
• Institutions—role of public; politicisation; and strengths and weaknesses;
• International cooperation;
• Judicial independence and reform;
• Labour rights;
• Laws and legislation—effectiveness and enforcement of existing anti-corruption laws and rule of law vs. rule of the jungle;
• Law enforcement agencies—“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” role of police vis both being corrupted and guarding against;
• Lobbying—codes of conduct; controls, definition; diaries, registers; sanctions, scope; etc.;
• Models of principal–agent and demand–supply;
• Money laundering, tax evasion and transfer pricing;
• Motivations;
• Multilateral organisations and treaties;
• NGOs;
• Oligarchy, oligopoly, ownership concentration and monopsony across industrial sectors;
• Political systems, stakeholders and polity;
• Politicisation and depoliticisation;
• Pollution and emissions regulations and controls;
• Power;
• Poverty;
• Private sector and private sector development;
• Privatisation;
• Public administration theories;
• Public bodies—anti-corruption agencies, consumer protections, government audits, and government or parliamentary scrutiny and committees;
• Public funds—collection and disbursement;
• Public interest;
• Public officials—appointed and elected; ‘conflicts of interest’ provisions; transparency and accountability;
• Public sector development;
• Regulatory framework and regulations—arbitrage and enforcement;
• Remedies and successful interventions and programs;
• Resource constraints and allowances;
• Responsibility—utilitarian and communitarian;
• Revolving door;
• Security—personal safety;
• Self-interest—tension between self and community vs altruism;
• Social media;
• Systemic inefficiencies;
• Technology—promise or hindrance to anti-corruption including AI;
• Theories;
• Transparency;
• Trust;
• UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
  • 1—No Poverty;
  • 2—Zero Hunger;
  • 5—Gender Equality;
  • 6—Clean Water and Sanitation;
  • 7—Affordable and Clean Energy;
  • 9—Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure;
  • 10—Reduced Inequalities;
  • 11—Sustainable Cities and Communities;
  • 12—Responsible Consumption and Production;
  • 13—Climate Action;
  • 14—Life Below Water;
  • 15—Life On Land;
  • 16—Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions;
  • 17—Partnership for the Goals;
• UNCAC—operationalisation of the convention in a country through anti-corruption legislation and enforcement;
• War and post-war reconstruction efforts.

We welcome initial approaches and suggestions that potential contributors may wish to address if they believe their paper is relevant to this Special Issue.

We look forward to receiving a variety of papers to provide the multi-disciplinary approach and understanding that are required on corruption.

¹ https://blog-pfm.imf.org/en/pfmblog/2023/04/costing-corruption-and-efficiency-losses-from-weak-pfm-systems#:~:text=The%20model%20estimates%20that%20globally,the%20budgetary%20central%20government%20level.

² https://www.unodc.org/corruption/en/uncac/ratification-status.html

³ https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003280316/innovation-pathways-sustainability-marie-dela-rama-michael-lester?context=ubx&refId=bcf69b64-18d8-4169-aa7a-e76377868e4a

⁴ https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD

Dr. Marie dela Rama
Dr. Michael E. Lester
Guest Editors

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• civil society
• climate change
• corruption
• economic development
• governance
• human rights
• sectors
• UN SDGs