Corruption, globalization and development: How are these three phenomena related?

This paper examines the existence of any relations between globalization and corruption using cross-section data for 127 countries. The estimation results indicate that, under the assumption of a linear model, a positive correlation between corruption and globalization exists, while when linearity is dropped there seems to be no significant effect of globalization on corruption. According to our analysis, linearity is a good approximation only for middle and high income countries. Hence, our main conclusion is that globalization is a powerful weapon against corruption only for middle and high income countries, while for low income countries globalization has no significant impact on corruption. For such countries fighting corruption requires additional global action aiming at the reduction of poverty.