The Historical Roots of Corruption and Economic Development in Italy

Arbeitspapier

We claim that a sequential mechanism linking history to development exists: first, history defines the quality of social capital; then, social capital determines the level of corruption; finally, corruption affects economic performance. We test this hypothesis on a dataset of Italian provinces, and address the possible endogeneity of corruption by applying an IV model. We use three sets of historical instruments for corruption: 1) foreign dominations in 16th-17th century, 2) autocracy/autonomous rule in the 14th century, and 3) an index of social capital between in the 19th-20th century. The results indicate a significant impact of historically-driven corruption on development.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 4212

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption ; Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development ; Institutions and Growth ; Single Equation Models: Single Variables: Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
• Subject: corruption ; economic development ; institutions ; social capital ; history

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Petrarca, Ilaria ; Ricciuti, Roberto
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/72568
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET