CORRUPTION IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: A STUDY ON CORRELATION BETWEEN CORRUPTION, QUALITY OF DEMOCRACY, GOVERNANCE, INCOME INEQUALITY AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE WORLD (2008-2012)

In recent decades, the quantitative study of corruption has grown opening unprecedented paths for social research. This paper stablishes a transnational comparison on the perception of corruption in public office from 2008 to 2012 and works with three hypotheses: 1) corruption is more prevalent in countries with less democratic quality; 2) all governance indicators exert any effect on corruption; 3) inequality is a major predictor of the corruption levels, even more than unemployment. To test these hypothetical details Democracy Ranking of the Quality of Democracy, Corruption Perception Index, Worldwide Governance Indicators, data from the World Development Indicators and World Bank, these data calculate the global level of unemployment and the Gini index, which measures the inequality in purchasing power and income were used. The results show that the first two hypotheses are adherent, as they are highly negative in correlation between corruption in the public service and quality of democracy, in addition to the six governance indicators. The third hypothesis scenario shows a relative adherence because income inequality and unemployment are correlated with corruption in the public functionalism, however, the correlation has a low value of significance indicating that these two factors are just part of a whole between factors that increase the level of corruption.